14 DAY TRIAL // Engineers at Arianespace, the manufacturer for the heavy-lift delivery system Ariane 5, can be proud of their work. Their rocket design has once again proven itself to be one of the most efficient and reliable in the world, when it soared into the skies on October 29, carrying a new double-payload. The take-off took place from the Kourou Spaceport, in French Guiana, South America, a facility owned by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was the second successful Ariane 5 launch this month alone.
“This latest success confirms that Ariane 5 is the commercial market's only operational launcher capable of simultaneously launching two large direct television broadcast satellites. It also confirms that Arianespace is the only launch services company capable of orbiting four commercial satellites in four weeks – which I also think is a new record,” the chairman and CEO of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, says of his company's achievement.
The launch event took place precisely at the planned time of 4:00 pm EDT (2000 GMT), Space reports. After a steep initial climb, the rocket traveled down range for about 30 minutes, until reaching the geosynchronous transfer orbit on which the two satellites, NSS 12 and Thor 6, needed to be inserted. The delivery system also achieved a massively-elliptical orbit, with the farthest point from Earth (the apogee) at about 22,346 miles, and the nearest one (the perigee), just 155 miles out. As they reach this orbit, the satellites began using their own engines to travel to their designated geostationary slots.
“NSS 12 represents a special commitment that our CEO, Robert Bednarek, made on January 30, 2007, when we lost the NSS 8 satellite. Less than three years later, we are here in Kourou to mark the launch of NSS 12,” the senior vice president of global sales SES World Skies, Scott Sprague, said. SES officials invited a few of their customers to the Kourou facility, to witness the launch. “It's great to see so many of our customers here today. They are in the audience, they are here to witness its beginning,” the company's senior vice president for market development, Steve Collar, added.