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* <\/font>*LIVE MISSION AND LAUNCH UPDATE PAGES**<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n * <\/font>*LIVE WEBCAST LINK**<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n * <\/em>**ARIANE 5 LAUNCH VIDEO**<\/em><\/font><\/font> \u2013 The launch comes after four successful Ariane 5 launches from Kourou, Europe\u2019s Spaceport in French Guiana, hot on the heels of the <\/font>Ariane 5 ECA triple launch<\/font> of DirecTV 9S, Optus D1 & LDREX 2 on October 13. <\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018So for Ariane the year is over. It\u2019s finished remarkably because five launches of Ariane \u2013 and 10 satellites in orbit \u2013 is what we said we would do and this is more than all of our competitors put together.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve signed 14 more contracts this year, filling another seven Ariane launches, so we have a number of great evenings ahead of us.\u2019<\/p>\n Satellite backgrounds<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n <\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/p>\n SES AMERICOM\u2019s AMC-18 telecommunications satellite <\/font>landed at Cayenne\u2019s Rochambeau International Airport aboard an Antonov AN-124 cargo jetliner back in November.<\/p>\n AMC-18 has been optimized for next-generation programming services, including high definition channels. AMC-18 will carry twenty four 36 MHz C-band transponders and will provide cable programming and broadcast services to the 50 United States and the Caribbean. <\/p>\n AMC-18 is expected to provide more than 15 years of design life and will expand SES AMERICOM\u2019s fleet of satellites, which provide distribution of cable, broadcast television and radio, telecommunications services, business television and broadband data throughout the Americas and transoceanic regions. AMC-18 is the 13th A2100 series spacecraft designed, built and launched for SES AMERICOM by Lockheed Martin. <\/font><\/p>\n Lockheed Martin is currently building AMC-14, which is scheduled to be launched in 2007. AMC-18 also marks the fifth launch of an A2100 this year and the second A2100 by Arianespace of Evry, France. <\/font><\/p>\n The Lockheed Martin A2100 geosynchronous spacecraft series is designed to meet a wide variety of telecommunications needs including Ka-band broadband and broadcast services, fixed satellite services in C-band and Ku-band, high-power direct broadcast services using the Ku-band frequency spectrum and mobile satellite services using UHF, L-band, and S-band payloads. <\/font><\/p>\n The A2100\u2019s modular design features a reduction in parts, simplified construction, increased on-orbit reliability and reduced weight and cost. <\/font><\/p>\n The A2100 spacecraft\u2019s design accommodates a large range of communication payloads as demonstrated by the 30 spacecraft successfully flown to date. This design modularity also enables the A2100 spacecraft to be configured for missions other than communication. <\/p>\n The A2100 design is currently being adapted for medium earth orbit (MEO) navigation missions and geostationary earth orbit (GEO)-based earth observing missions and is currently the baselined platform for Lockheed Martin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Series-R (GOES-R) proposal.<\/p>\n The WildBlue-1 satellite will enable WildBlue to expand its satellite broadband connectivity to homes and small businesses in U.S. communities where terrestrial broadband access is either limited or unavailable.<\/p>\n This 4.7-metric ton high-power satellite is based on Space Systems\/Loral\u2019s 1300 spacecraft bus, and will provide Ka-band spot beam capacity over the contiguous United States. <\/p>\n \u2018We knew Space Systems\/Loral had the right combination of experience and technology to provide us with an advanced, high-power satellite,\u2019 said David Leonard, chief executive officer of WildBlue Communications, Inc. <\/p>\n \u2018WildBlue-1 will help the company keep pace with our rapidly increasing customer demand. We are confident of the value and reliability that WildBlue will experience from working with the leader in commercial satellite manufacturing.\u2019 <\/p>\n WildBlue-1 is one of the world\u2019s first commercial all Ka-band satellites, which takes advantage of a different portion of the radio spectrum with substantially more capacity than is available in the Ku-band, a more common frequency used for satellite communications. <\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n The technically advanced spacecraft is designed to provide fast and affordable two-way wireless Internet access via satellite directly to homes and small offices in communities throughout the contiguous United States where terrestrial broadband access alternatives are either limited or unavailable. <\/p>\n \u2018Throughout the WildBlue-1 project, our companies shared a commitment to teamwork and quality,\u2019 said John Celli, president of Space Systems\/Loral. WildBlue is a bellwether for the success of broadband services via satellite. <\/p>\n \u2018The new satellite delivered today demonstrates how an innovative and flexible satellite design, which meets some very unique technical requirements, can continue to broaden the world\u2019s ability to communicate.\u2019<\/font><\/p>\n **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n <\/em><\/font> The fifth launch of the Ariane 5 took place on Friday evening, launching the AMC-18 and WildBlue-1 communication satellites into GTO (Geostationary Transfer Orbits). Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall praised his team for the five successful Ariane 5 launches this year \u2013 once again stating how Arianespace is out-performing their competitors. A free launch video […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-41861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41861"}],"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=41861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/font><\/em>(Video section is FREE, but you need to sign up as a member of the forum to enter the video section of the site. We only use your e-mail to send you your password. It will not be used for spam etc.)<\/em><\/p>\n\u2018This is another successful launch of the Ariane 5,\u2019 said Le Gall. \u2018This is the sixteenth successful launch in a row and the ninth and tenth satellites that we have launched this year.<\/font><\/font> <\/font> <\/font>\u2018I would like to congratulate our customers and we are very proud to participate in this success.\u2019<\/p>\n
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