Ariane 5 provided another record payload lift performance during its year-opening dual-passenger flight on Thursday evening, February 7 from the Spaceport in French Guiana.
Thursday's launch orbited the Amazonas 3 and Azerspace/Africasat-1a telecommunications satellites, delivering a total calculated mass into geostationary transfer orbit of 10,317 kg – that included 9,503 k. for the two spacecraft, along with the dispenser system and integration hardware in Ariane 5's dual payload "stack."
The mission was carried out by an Ariane 5 ECA launcher from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff was on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 6:36 pm local time in Kourou (4:36 pm in Washington, D.C., 21:36 UT, 10:36 pm in Paris, and 1:36 am on Friday, February 8 in Baku).
Amazonas-3 was built by Space Systems/Loral using the SSL 1300 platform and weighed 6,265 kg at launch. It has 33 Ku-band transponders, 19 C-band transponders, and 9 Ka-band spot beams. This high-power satellite provides a wide range of telecommunications and broadband connectivity services in Europe, the Americas and North Africa. It offers a design life of 15 years. Amazonas-3 is the 43rd satellite built by Space Systems/Loral to be launched by Arianespace.
The Azerspace/Africasat-1a satellite was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation using a Star-2 platform. Weighing 3,000 kg at launch, the satellite is equipped with 24 C-band transponders and 12 Ku-band transponders. It will provide a wide range of telecommunications services for Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
46.0° E | AFRICASAT-1a C-Band Footprint