Ariane 5 Rocket Successfully Orbits Satellite Pair

The successful launch of Flight 168, an Ariane 5G with a double payload, took place on Thursday 13 October 2005 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana (early Friday morning 14 October 2005 CEST) CREDIT: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE/SOV

KOUROU, French Guiana -- An Ariane 5G rocket successfully placed two telecommunications satellites into orbit Oct. 13, one for French and NATO defense forces, the other for PanAmSat Holding's U.S. cable-television broadcast service.

The French Defense Ministry's Syracuse3A telecommunications satellite is expected to be in service by Jan. 1, in time to honor contract agreements with the NATO alliance. NATO is leasing capacity on board Syracuse 3A and its companion, Syracuse 3B, to be launched in mid-2006, as well as similar capacity on British and Italian satellites as part of a 15-year contract valued at 450 million euros ($540 million) to be divided among the three nations.

The Syracuse 3A satellite, carrying nine SHF (super-high frequency) and six EHF (extremely high frequency) channels, was built by Alcatel Alenia Space of France and Italy. It will be placed in geostationary orbit at 47 degrees east longitude.

The second passenger aboard the launch was PanAmSat's Galaxy 15 satellite. Built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., Galaxy 15 carries 28 C-band transponders to beam video programming to cable operators in the 50 U.S. states.

Galaxy 15 also carries an L-band payload for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It will be integrated into a U.S. system that augments the performance of the U.S. GPS satellite navigation system. The satellite will be at PanAmSat's 133 degrees west orbital position.