Ariane rocket puts three satellites in orbit

Kouray (French Guiana), Oct 14: A heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket blasted-off from French Guiana putting into orbit three satellites in its fourth mission this year, space officials said.

The rocket launched on schedule from Europe's space base in Kourou late yesterday, on the northeast coast of South America at 1756 hrs (local time), despite a demonstration at the main entrance by striking space centre workers demanding shorter working hours.

Billed by the Arianespace rocket launch company >as a cost effective launcher for large satellites, the heavy-lift rocket is capable of launching payloads of up to 10 metric tonnes.

This adds more than three tonnes of launch capacity to the current ''Generic'' Ariane-5 in service since the mid-1990s.

Arianespace is 28 per cent owned by European aerospace giant EADS.

Twenty-seven minutes after the launch, the rocket released into a preliminary orbit the DIRECTV 9S communications satellite for US operator DIRECTV.

Built in the United States by Space Systems/Loral a division of Loral Space&Communications DIRETV weighed 5.5 metric tonnes at launch and was designed to broadcast high definition television to the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii.

Telecom services for Australia DirectTV

officials said they were the leading American provider of high definition and direct-to-home satellite services with over 15 million subscribers.

Six minutes later the rocket orbited OPTUS D1 a 2.3 tonne satellite for Australia's operator Optus PLC, which is owned by SingTel.

This satellite will provide direct television transmission as well as telephone and data services throughout Australia and New Zealand.

OPTUS D1 was built in the U.S. by Orbital Sciences Corp.

''We have already had six (satellite) launches, but none has been as critical as this one as it will replace our (OPTUS) B1 satellite that is approaching the end of its operational life,'' Bill Hope, OPTUS' executive vice president told Reuters after the launch.

''OPTUS D1 will provide supplementary capacity that we need for our over one million clients throughout Australia and New Zealand,'' Hope said.

The third satellite, LDREX-2 for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is an experimental antenna model to be used on a future technology satellite. Its deployment into space followed OPTUS' separation by over 30 minutes.

Jean-Yves Legall, Arianespace's CEO said yesterday's launch was the sixth consecutive successful launch for the heavy-lift Ariane-5 since it was put into commercial service.

It's first launch in December 2002 ended in failure after the rocket exploded in flight due to an anomaly in its main engine.

Reuters