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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
Given Arianespace now enjoys a full family of launch vehicles \u2013 following the introduction of the Soyuz and Vega rockets at the Spaceport \u2013 the company has adopted a new numbering system to identify its missions with these three vehicles.<\/p>\n
As such, Ariane 5 flights carry the \u201cVA\u201d designation, followed by the flight number. The \u201cV\u201d is for \u201cvol,\u201d the French word for \u201cflight,\u201d while the \u201cA\u201d represents the use of an Ariane launch vehicle.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Z34.jpg\" "\\"Z3\\"")
With the introduction of Soyuz at the Spaceport in 2011, Arianespace missions from South America with the medium-lift workhorse launcher are being designated \u201cVS,\u201d while flights with the lightweight Vega vehicle are referenced as \u201cVV\u201d, following its successful debut this year.<\/p>\nNASA mission patches
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For this mission, the designation was VA207 \u2013 signifying the 207th flight of an Ariane family launcher. It was the third Ariane 5 mission in 2012.<\/p>\n
Ariane 5 delivered a payload lift performance of more than 9,600 kg. during the mission, which included a combined total of over 7,500 kg. for the EchoStar XVII and MSG-3 spacecraft, plus the launch vehicle\u2019s dual-passenger dispenser system and satellite integration hardware.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Z43.jpg\" "\\"Z4\\"")
EchoStar XVII \u2013 also known as \u201cJupiter\u201d \u2013 is based on Space Systems\/Loral\u2019s powerful SS\/L 1300 satellite platform, and will deliver broadband services to consumers, businesses and government customers across North America. It employs a multi-spot beam, bent-pipe Ka-band architecture that provides significant additional capacity for Hughes.<\/p>\nThe launch was scheduled for June 19. However, Space Systems\/Loral requested additional checks to take place on their spacecraft, causing a slip to July 5.<\/p>\n
With a liftoff mass of approximately 2,000 kg., MSG-3 will operate in geostationary orbit after its deployment by Ariane 5, providing highly detailed imagery of Europe, the North Atlantic and Africa for use by meteorologists and national weather forecasters.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Z53.jpg\" "\\"Z5\\"")
MSG-3 was positioned atop Ariane 5\u2019s core cryogenic stage during activity inside the Spaceport\u2019s launch vehicle Final Assembly Building \u2013 placing it as the lower passenger in the dual-payload \u201cstack,\u201d was released second in the flight sequence after its co-passenger, EchoStar XVII.<\/p>\nArianespace\u2019s mission with MSG-3 marked the ninth Meteosat-series satellite launched by Ariane vehicles from French Guiana since 1981 for operation in geostationary orbit.<\/p>\n
A total of six Meteosat First Generation meteorological platforms were orbited on flights performed in June 1981, June 1988, March 1989, March 1991, November 1993, and September 1997. This was followed by the two second-generation spacecraft deployed in August 2002 and December 2005.<\/p>\n
The first in the series of the second-generation spacecraft, MSG-1 \u2013 also known as Meteosat-8 \u2013 was launched in 2002. MSG-2 followed three years later. Both have been successful in continuing the legacy of the operational meteorological satellites that started with Meteosat-1 in 1977.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Z64.jpg\" "\\"Z6\\"")
Produced by a Thales Alenia Space-led European consortium, MSG-3 will be operated by EUMETSAT (the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites).<\/p>\nThe satellite\u2019s primary instrument is the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infra-red Imager (SEVIRI), which builds images of the Earth\u2019s surface and atmosphere in 12 different wavelengths once every 15 minutes. Four of the 12 SEVIRI channels look at sunlight reflected from the Earth\u2019s surface and clouds, while the remaining eight are designed to monitor thermal infrared wavelengths.
\n
\nAlso carried on MSG-3 is the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument for measurements of radiation originating on Earth from the Sun. The payload is completed by a communications package for the rebroadcast of EUMETSAT data to end users\u2019 ground stations, as well as a search and rescue transponder for the international Cospas-Sarsat program.<\/p>\nThe last of the series, MSG-4, is planned for launch in 2015.<\/p>\n
This mission follows the May 15 launch of two telecommunications satellites for Asia: JCSAT-13 and VINASAT-2; and the March 23 liftoff with Europe\u2019s third Automated Transfer Vehicle for servicing of the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n
(Images via Arianespace)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arianespace have launched their Ariane 5 ECA on a mission to loft two satellites into orbit \u2013 namely Meteosat Second Generation-3 (MSG-3) and EchoStar XVII. Launch from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana was on schedule at the start of a 29 minute launch window that opened at 9:36pm GMT on Wednesday. Ariane 5 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30329,"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":[1540,246],"class_list":["post-40075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane-5","tag-esa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40075"}],"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=40075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}