Europe’s Ariane 5 makes year-end flight

Ariane 5, Europe’s heavy-lift rocket, has successfully lifted off two telecommunication satellites from its Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

In its sixth and year-end mission, the rocket put Hispasat-1E and 2.7-ton Koreasat-6 high above the earth, the state-funded BBC reported.

“It’s the 41st consecutive success of Ariane 5 and in 2010 we will have launched a total of 12 large telecommunications satellites out of a world total of 20,” said chairman and CEO of the rocket’s operator, Arianespace Jean-Yves Le Gall.

“This gives us a market share of 60 percent.”

The biggest “passenger” of Ariane 5 was the 5.3-ton Hispasat-1E which will deliver video and data services to the Spanish operator, Hispasat on television and value-added broadband services in mobile, land and maritime environments.

According to Xinhua, Hispasat-1E was built by Space Systems/Loral with a life span of 15 years and was the first to be separated from Ariane 5 over 27 minutes after the liftoff.

Koreasat 6, a product of the US Orbital Sciences Corporation and Thales Alenia Space of France for South Korea’s KT Corporation, will provide TV and telecoms services for South Korea.

Nearly 3,000 kilograms, the second and lower passenger of the rocket was ejected about 6 minutes later heading to its expected orbital position at 116 degrees east.

The first space journey of Ariane in the coming year will most probably be a re-supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), taking more than six tons of fuel, air, food and equipment for the station’s astronauts.

Scheduled for February 15, 2011, the mission will put Europe’s 20-ton space freighter, ATV-Johannes Kepler, in a low-Earth orbit.

The freighter will use its own thrusters to get to the orbiting outpost after getting off the Ariane.