14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the Hylas-1 satellite has just been mated with its Ariane 5 heavy-lift delivery system, at the agency's spaceport in Kourou, the French Guyana.
After spending several days being fueled in a special facility, the spacecraft was moved to the Final Assembly Building (FAB), where it was lowered atop the Ariane 5 rocket that will loft it to space. The delivery system is constructed by European company Arianespace.
The transport stage took place on November 17, when the innovative telecommunications satellite was placed inside a special transport container. The housing protected it during the 5-kilometer journey to the FAB, as weather in the French Guyana can be quite moody.
Generally, high temperatures at the launch site are accompanied by high levels of humidity, and alternate with episodes of heavy, torrential rain. Even in its cocoon, the satellite posed a threat to workers, so a distance of 130 meters between the spacecraft and crews was maintained at all times.
Once at the FAB, a crane lifted Hylas-1 about 40 meters (125 feet) in the air, and then lowered it atop the Ariane 5 rocket, where it met the Intelsat-17 satellite that will accompany it to orbit. At this point, the two spacecrafts are scheduled to take off on November 26.
Once in space, Hylas-1 will be injected into an operational geostationary orbit at an altitude of about 36,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet.
Hylas-1 stands for Highly Adaptable Satellite, ESA says. It main mission will be to provide customers with innovative services including High Definition Television (HDTV) and interactive satellite-delivered broadband programs.
It made its way to the French Guyana aboard a massive Antonov An-124 cargo jetliner, and it arrived in the evening of Monday, October 11.
After being unloaded from the airplane, the boxed satellite was transported by road to the S1B satellite preparation facility, which is a clean room at the ESA spaceport. There, it underwent a series of tests in preparation for the flight.
“While its payload has been developed in Europe, Hylas-1’s flight-proven I-2K satellite platform was procured by prime contractor EADS Astrium from Antrix Corporation in India, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO),” ESA says in a statement,
“This is the first spacecraft to have been developed through a public-private partnership between ESA and a commercial satellite operator. Avanti Communications of London will own and operate the satellite from its geostationary orbital location of 33.5° West,” the document adds.