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Designed to place payloads weighing up to 9.6 tonnes into GTO, this increased capacity allows the Ariane 5 ECA to handle dual launches of very large satellites.<\/p>\n
Arianespace now enjoys a full family of launch vehicles.<\/p>\n
With the introduction of Soyuz at the Spaceport in 2011, Arianespace\u2019s family was joined by the lightweight Vega vehicle, following her successful debut in 2012.<\/p>\n
Astronomy
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Arianespace will also be at the center of a new launch vehicle, the Ariane 6, which has been approved by the ESA members.<\/p>\n
![\"2016-07-25-223517\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/2016-07-25-223517-350x236.jpg\")
The future fleet of Ariane 6 and Vega C launch systems may also involve a level of reusability in the future.<\/p>\nThis latest mission was designated Flight VA231 in Arianespace\u2019s launcher family numbering system and was the 231st Ariane mission since this series of vehicles entered operation in 1979.<\/p>\n
The launch had an estimated payload performance of 10,660 kg. \u2013 a total that factors in Sky Muster II and GSAT-18, plus the dual-satellite dispenser system and integration hardware. Both passengers are to be deployed to geostationary transfer orbit during a 32-minute flight sequence.<\/p>\n
Sky Muster II was the mission\u2019s upper passenger and was released first in the flight sequence at 28 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n
Produced by SSL (Space Systems Loral) for operator nbn, it will help extend high-speed internet across Australia, including the country\u2019s rural and isolated regions.<\/p>\n
![\"2016-10-04-142921\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-04-142921-350x227.jpg\")
Sky Muster II was delivered by a chartered Antonov An-124 cargo jetliner, which touched down at F\u00e9lix Ebou\u00e9 Airport near the French Guiana capital city of Cayenne.<\/p>\nAfter unloading in its protective shipping container, the satellite was ready for a road trip to the Spaceport launch base for pre-launch processing.<\/p>\n
As with nbn\u2019s first Sky Muster satellite \u2013 which was launched in September 2015 on another Ariane 5 flight \u2013 Sky Muster II is a Ka-band, high-throughput broadband satellite.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sky Muster service is intended to be a game changer for the way people work, learn and live in regional and remote Australia,\u201d said Bill Morrow, chief executive officer of nbn.<\/p>\n
\u201cSSL has been an excellent partner in the development of our satellites, and the first Sky Muster satellite is operating well. Now we look forward to continuing to work together as we prepare for the launch of the second satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2016-10-04-142728\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-04-142728-350x234.jpg\")
Sky Muster II is based on SSL\u2019s 1300 spacecraft platform.<\/p>\n\u201cIt has been very gratifying to work together with our colleagues in Australia to help establish a satellite service that brings high-speed internet to underserved users anywhere in Australia,\u201d added John Celli, president of SSL.<\/p>\n
\u201cSSL is a leader in building broadband satellites that are used for services that improve people\u2019s lives and open new opportunities for education, healthcare and economic development, and we commend the government of Australia for assuring that all of its citizens have this type of access.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deployed from Ariane 5\u2019s lower passenger position was GSAT-18, which was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to strengthen its current fleet of 14 operational telecommunications satellites.<\/p>\n
This spacecraft\u2019s separation occurred approximately 32 minutes after liftoff \u2013 completing the October 4 mission.<\/p>\n
![\"2016-10-04-143105\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-04-143105-350x251.jpg\")
GSAT-18 is a communication Satellite configured around I-3K extended bus with a lift off mass of about 3425 kg and 6 KW power generation capacity.<\/p>\nThe GSAT-18 carries Ku- band, Normal C-band and Extended C-band transponders.<\/p>\n
Once in orbit, it will serve as a replacement for operational satellites that currently provide key national services in multiple frequency bands \u2013 to be joined by GSAT-17, which will be orbited on a future Ariane 5 mission from the Spaceport in French Guiana.<\/p>\n
As the fifth heavy-lift Ariane 5 flight so far in 2016, the launch continued a busy year of mission activity for Arianespace\u2019s full family of launchers, which also has included two flights performed with the medium-lift Soyuz and one using the lightweight Vega.<\/p>\n
(Images via Arianespace).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ariane 5 continued Arianespace\u2019s busy 2016 pace with her fifth launch of the year via the lofting of the Sky Muster II and GSAT-18 communication satellites on Wednesday. The launch \u2013 from the European Spaceport in Kourou \u2013 took place at the start of a 1 hour 15-minute launch window that opens at 20:30 UTC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1540],"class_list":["post-38946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane-5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}