KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - The West European Arianespace consortium confirmed Wednesday that the new generation Ariane-5 rocket would make its first commercial launch Friday carrying a 3.9-ton telescope.
The rocket, designed to launch heavier satellites than its elder sister Ariane-4, is scheduled to blast off at 11:32 a.m. from the Kourou launch pad in French Guiana.
The rocket has made two successful test flights in 1997 and 1998 after the first Ariane-5 exploded 37 seconds after lift-off in June 1996.
For its first commercial flight, the European Space Agency (ESA) will pay Arianespace $154 million to launch into orbit a space telescope, the XMM (X-Ray Multimirror Mission) $700 million project financed by ESA member states.
The biggest European-built satellite, XMM will study X-rays emitted by some of the hottest and remotest stars.
Equipped with huge mirrors, it will allow scientists to ''obtain a signature of all materials ejected from stars,'' XMM project chief Robert Laine told reporters.
The telescope, 13 meters (43 feet) long and 4.5 meters (14.8 feet) in diameter was taken by river barge from ESA's European space technology center in the Dutch town of Noordwijk to Rotterdam, then shipped to Kourou.
Ariane-5's flight V504 will be the ninth launch from Kourou this year. In the 50th successive successful launch by an Ariane-4 rocket, the military spy satellite Helios 1B financed by France, Italy and Spain was placed on orbit last week.
After next Friday's launch, Arianespace will still have 205 launch contracts on its order books.
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