Ariane 5 ECA Liftoff Arianespace’s heavy-lift workhorse Ariane 5 space launcher successfully orbited the EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 and G...
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| Ariane 5 ECA Liftoff |
Arianespace’s heavy-lift workhorse Ariane 5 space launcher successfully orbited the EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 and GSAT-7 spacecraft on its 57th consecutive success for Ariane 5 ECA Launcher.
The mission was carried out from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff was on Thursday, August 29, 2013 at 5:30 pm local time in Kourou (4:30 pm in Washington, D.C., 20:30 UT, 10:30 pm in Paris, 11:30 pm in Doha, and on Friday, August 30 at 2:00 am in Bangalore).
The satellites were deployed into geostationary transfer orbit, with EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 released nearly 28 minutes after liftoff, and GSAT-7 separating approximately six minutes later to complete the flight sequence.
EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 was designed and built by Space Systems/Loral in California and weighed 6,310 kg at liftoff. The EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 satellite is a joint program of Es-hailSat and Eutelsat to operate a high-power satellite at 25.5 degrees East, an orbital position that has been used for many years.
This new satellite will serve booming markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. It will replace EUTELSAT 25C to bolster the power and coverage provided from this orbital position. In addition to ensuring Ku-band service continuity for Eutelsat and providing Ku-band capacity for Es'hailSat, the satellite will offer the two partners their initial Ka-band capacity, paving the way for new business development opportunities.
Indian GSAT-7 satellite, designed, developed and integrated by ISRO in Bangalore, southern India, is a dedicated to telecommunications services for the Indian Navy. It weighed 2,650 kg at launch and offers a design life exceeding seven years. GSAT-7 carries Ku, C, S and UHF band transponders. Positioned at 74 degrees East, its coverage zone encompasses the entire Indian subcontinent.The EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 satellite is the first geostationary telecommunications satellite launched for Qatar, and the 23rd launched by Arianespace for customers in Africa and the Middle East.
It carries on the collaboration between Arianespace and Eutelsat that started in June 1983, and therefore marks its 30th anniversary this year.
GSAT-7 is the 17th ISRO satellite to use the European launcher since the Apple experimental satellite was launched on flight L03 in 1981. Arianespace has also launched two other satellites designed by India, for the operators Eutelsat and Avanti Communications.
The partnership between Arianespace and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) reaches back to the creation of Arianespace, and has allowed the two companies to define highly effective joint working methods, as shown by today's launch, just a month after the launch of Insat-3D, a meteorological satellite developed by ISRO, by an Ariane 5 ECA from the Guiana Space Center on July 25.
Ariane 5 delivered a total liftoff performance of 9,790 kg., including its two payloads and hardware for the launcher’s dual-payload deployment system. The mission represents the 215th launch of an Ariane-series vehicle, as well as the 71st liftoff for Ariane 5.
To date, Arianespace has lofted 20 payloads in 2013 on seven missions across its entire family. Ariane 5 has carried seven spacecraft into orbit on its four missions this year, with a combined total liftoff performance of more than 50,000 kg.
The medium-lift Soyuz and lightweight Vega have been active as well, with one mission each from the Spaceport, in addition to a Soyuz flight from the Baikonur Cosmodrome conducted by Arianespace’s Starsem affiliate.
Arianespace’s next launch – Soyuz Flight VS06 – will orbit the second batch of four O3b Networks’spacecraft during late September, following the initial four lofted by Soyuz in June. Soyuz Flight VS07, the medium-lift vehicle’s subsequent mission from French Guiana, is to launch Europe’s Gaia “star-mapper” spacecraft in late November.
