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View Full Version : The Spaceport gears up for multiple Ariane 5 launches during the spring and summer


Jacques van Oene
March 25th 05, 05:55 PM
March 23, 2005

The Spaceport gears up for multiple Ariane 5 launches during the spring and
summer

Arianespace is preparing for a busy period of mission activity with Ariane 5
as it prepares to launch a series of commercial payloads during the next
five months from the Spaceport in French Guiana.

Speaking at the Satellite 2005 conference in Washington, D.C., Arianespace
Chief Executive Officer Jean-Yves Le Gall said the company expects to orbit
a total of seven payloads on Ariane 5 missions through the end of summer.

Utilizing the Guiana Space Center's flexibility - including the availability
of two mobile launch tables - Arianespace is planning to perform four Ariane
5 missions during the upcoming months, Le Gall said. Three of these missions
will be flown with Ariane 5 Generic version, while the other will employ the
increased-performance Ariane 5 ECA.

"We currently are preparing two launch campaigns in parallel on the two
mobile launch tables - one with an Ariane 5 Generic vehicle, and the other
with an Ariane 5 ECA," Le Gall told attendees at a Satellite 2005 panel
discussion on the future of the launch industry. "The actual scheduling of
payloads will depend on availability of the satellites."

The upcoming Ariane 5 missions will benefit from Arianespace's extensive
experience in pairing up satellites for cost-effective dual payload
launches. This capability has been demonstrated in Ariane operations since
the 1980s, and 71 missions have been performed from the Spaceport with such
multiple payloads.



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Jacques :-)

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