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Ariane 5 Carries Weather and Communications Satellites into Earth Orbit
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
posted: 08:00 pm ET
28 August 2002
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A pair of European communications and weather satellites were successfully hurled into Earth orbit Wednesday riding atop an Ariane 5 rocket launched one day late from South America. Liftoff of the powerful 15-story rocket from the Arianespace launch base in French Guiana took place at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) and both spacecraft were safely delivered into their proper orbits during the next 38 minutes. First to be deployed was Atlantic Bird 1, a communications satellite built by Alenia Spazio in Italy for the Eutelsat organization. It is to operate for 15 years providing Internet, telephony, business network and television transmission services to customers in Europe and the east coast of the American continents. Although Arianespace has now launched five satellites built by the Italian aerospace company, tonight's shot was the first in which the spacecraft manufacturer procured the ride into space from Arianespace instead of the satellite operator, an increasingly popular trend in the worldwide aerospace industry. Atlantic Bird 1 is the 18th satellite launched by the European launcher for Eutelsat and is expected to be operational by early October. The second spacecraft to be dropped off into orbit was MSG-1, short for Meteosat Second Generation. It is the first of a new constellation of satellites that is to provide daily weather information much in the same way that GOES and NOAA weather satellites provide data to U.S. forecasters.Built by Alcatel Space in France, MSG-1 was developed by the European Space Agency for the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). Two more MSG spacecraft will be procured and launched to provide service for the next 12 years as part of the $1.27 billion program. MSG officials say the spacecraft -- which will replace Europe's original Eumetsat satellites that have operated for the past 25 years -- will provide clearer and more detailed pictures of the weather scene, which in turn will help meteorologists produce more accurate medium and short-term forecasts. For Arianespace the launch helped improve the success rate for the big Ariane 5 rocket, which the company will soon begin total reliance on after retiring the Ariane 4 family of boosters. The Ariane 5 is a direct competitor with U.S. launcher such as Lockheed Martin's new Atlas 5 and Boeing's soon-to-fly Delta 4. Wednesday's launch marked the 10th commercial mission for Ariane 5 and the 13th launch overall. Liftoff was set for Tuesday but a last-minute technical glitch that couldn't be resolved in a short-enough time forced officials to delay the launch one day. Then tonight the launch was delayed 15 minutes because of a last-moment problem that seemed similar to Tuesday's trouble -- although Arianespace launch commentators gave no clear explanation as to what caused the brief delay. But once the rocket got off the ground there were no problems whatsoever. Arianespace managers will have little time to celebrate their success. An Ariane 4 is scheduled to launch Sept. 6 with Intelsat 906 aboard.
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