CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- New military communications satellites for Great Britain and Italy were lifted into orbit Wednesday by the most powerful version of an Ariane 4 rocket.
The three-stage commercial launcher blasted off from the Guiana Space Center in South America at 6:05 p.m. EST (23:05 GMT), its lifting power assisted by four liquid-fueled strap-on booster rockets.
Less than 26 minutes later the mission was declared a success after safely delivering into orbit first the Sicral satellite for the Italian Ministry of Defense and then Skynet 4F for the British Ministry of Defense. A problem with the Skynet satellite delayed the launch 37 minutes.
"One more success for Ariane 4. You never get used to it," said Jean-Marie Luton, chairman of Arianespace.
Known as flight V-139, it was the first time in Arianespace's 21-year history that two military satellites were carried on the same rocket.
"This is concrete proof that the Ariane system has met the political and strategical goals set back in 1973 of giving Europe independent access to space," Luton said.
Sicral is the cornerstone of a new military communication system for Italy built by a consortium called Sitab, which is made up of Alenia Spazio, FiatAvio and Telespazio.Skynet 4F, meanwhile, was built by Astrium - the result of a May 2000 merger of Matra Marconi Space and the space division of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace - and is the third in a series of so-called Stage 2 Skynet 4 satellites launched for Great Britain. Skynet 4D was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1998 and Skynet 4E was sent into orbit in 1999 from Kourou.
By the numbers: Wednesday's launch was the second of 11 planned missions for Arianespace this year, the 31st flight of this Ariane 4 configuration, the 103rd Ariane 4 launch and the 139th Ariane launch of the program. Arianespace now has chalked up a string of 61 succesful Ariane 4 launches.
Arianespace's first launch of the year was on Jan. 10 when an Ariane 4 carried Eurasiasat 1 - also known as Turksat 2A - into orbit.
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