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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Ariane rocket delivers satellites | Ariane rocket delivers satellites |
| (2 days later) | |
| Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5-ECA rocket has put three satellites in orbit. | Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5-ECA rocket has put three satellites in orbit. |
| Two of the satellites will transmit TV services to America and Australia. The third is a test platform for the Japanese space agency (Jaxa). | |
| The flight from Kourou in French Guiana was the fourth mission of the year for the Ariane 5, which is operated by the Paris-based Arianespace company. | |
| The ECA has the power to push payloads of 10 tonnes towards a geostationary orbit, 36,000km above the Earth. | The ECA has the power to push payloads of 10 tonnes towards a geostationary orbit, 36,000km above the Earth. |
| The total payload at lift-off for this flight was just short of the maximum for the 50m-long rocket. | The total payload at lift-off for this flight was just short of the maximum for the 50m-long rocket. |
| The DIRECTV 9S satellite, for the US operator DIRECTV Incorporated, was the heaviest item at 5.5 tonnes; the OPTUS D1 spacecraft, for the Australian operator OPTUS, was 2.3 tonnes at launch; and the Japanese LDREX-2 experimental reflector had a lift-off mass of 211kg. | |
| The latter was mounted to the base of the Ariane 5's payload "stack" and was a scale-model intended to test the design of a large deployable antenna that will be flown on a future Jaxa mission. | |
| The ECA left Kourou at 1756 local time (2056 GMT). |