Following a scrub-prone launch campaign in June, Arianespace have enjoyed first-time success with Wednesday\u2019s launch of their Ariane 5 ECA vehicle \u2013 her third mission of the year. The workhorse has two telecommunication passengers \u2013 Nilesat-201 and RASCOM-QAF1R \u2013 and launched slightly after the start of the long launch window.<\/p>\n
Ariane 5 ECA:<\/p>\n
Flight 196 is the 52nd Ariane 5 launch and the third in 2010. An Ariane 5 ECA (Cryogenic Evolution type A), the most powerful version in the Ariane 5 range, will be used for this flight, launching from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.<\/p>\n
Launcher 554, the 48th production phase Ariane 5, is the twenty-sixth of the 30 PA contract launchers, for which Astrium is production prime contractor. 554 is consequently the twenty-sixth complete launcher to be delivered to Arianespace, integrated and checked out under Astrium\u2019s responsibility in the Launcher Integration Building (BIL).<\/p>\n
Arianespace is looking to recover from the numerous issues associated with their Arabsat 5A and COMS 1 launch attempt on the 23rd, which suffered from an issue relating to the launcher subsystem late in countdown operations, resulting in a scrub for the day.<\/p>\n
The countdown appeared to be going to plan on the following day, prior to a hold being called at T-17 seconds. With the clock reset to T-7 minutes, another attempt was made, before another hold was called at almost the same time as the earlier issue.<\/p>\n
Lacking available time in the launch window to resolve the problem \u2013 classed as an issue with the spaceport\u2019s launch infrastructure, a scrub was called, with the third attempt set for 48 hours later \u2013 which enjoyed an issue-free countdown, resulting with a launch at the start of the window.<\/p>\n
For the latest campaign, Ariane 5 ECA is again using the dual-payload configuration, with the debut use of the SYLDA 5 K \u2013 seven metres high, i.e. 60 cm more than the usual SYLDA 5 A \u2013 system with an extended nose-cone (total height: 17 m), to carry the Egyptian NILESAT 201 satellite in the upper position and the African RASCOM-QAF1R satellite in the lower position.<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Nilesat-201 will enable the Egyptian satellite operator Nilesat to deliver digital Direct to Home (DTH) TV and radio broadcasting and high-speed data transmission services to North Africa and the Middle East starting in September 2010.<\/p>\n Built on a Spacebus 4000B2 platform, Nilesat-201 is fitted with 24 Ku-band and 4 Ka-band transponders. It will be positioned at 7 degrees West longitude and offers a design life of 15 years. Weight at launch will be about 3,200 kg, and it will generate 5.9 kW of power at end-of-life.<\/p>\n RASCOM-QAF1R will ensure service continuity for the operator RascomStar-QAF and its customers, by giving Africa access to advanced communications and information technologies, in particular rural telephony.<\/p>\n Based on the Spacebus 4000B3 platform, the RASCOM-QAF1R satellite Is equipped with 24 equivalent 36 MHz transponders in both Ku-band and C-band. The bird will provide 6.4 kW of power at end-of-life. Positioned at 2.9 degrees East longitude, RASCOM-QAF1R will cover the African continent, as well as parts of Europe and the Middle East.<\/p>\n RASCOM-QAF1R \u2013 which has a liftoff mass of about 3,050 kg. \u2013 will be deployed from Ariane 5\u2019s lower passenger position at approximately 33 minutes into the flight.<\/p>\n The August 4 mission also will be Ariane 5\u2019s third flight of 2010, which follows two previous dual-payload launches: the June 26 mission that orbited the Arabsat-5A and COMS spacecraft, and the May 21 launch with ASTRA 3B and COMSATBw-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following a scrub-prone launch campaign in June, Arianespace have enjoyed first-time success with Wednesday\u2019s launch of their Ariane 5 ECA vehicle \u2013 her third mission of the year. The workhorse has two telecommunication passengers \u2013 Nilesat-201 and RASCOM-QAF1R \u2013 and launched slightly after the start of the long launch window. Ariane 5 ECA: Flight 196 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[7984],"class_list":["post-40698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40698"}],"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=40698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}