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Ariane 5 Rocket Launches 3 Spacecraft Into Orbit From Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 18 2020, @07:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the 3-2-1-launch! dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Ariane 5 Rocket Launches 3 Spacecraft Into Orbit From Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana:

Europe's Ariane 5 has delivered two telecom satellites Galaxy-30 and BSAT-4B, and the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-2), into their planned transfer orbits. There are also four notable updates to the launch vehicle.

Arianespace announced liftoff at 23:04 BST (00:04 CEST, 19:04 local time) this evening from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, for a mission lasting about 47 minutes.

Galaxy-30, with a launch mass of 3298 kg, was the first to be released after about 27 minutes. The 2875 kg MEV-2, also housed in the upper berth of the fairing, was released about seven minutes later.

Following a series of burns controlled by Ariane's computer, the Sylda structure encasing the 3530 kg BSAT-4B was then jettisoned. BSAT-4B was released into its own transfer orbit about thirteen minutes after MEV-2.

[...] This is the first launch following the restart of operational activities at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, after the suspension of launch campaigns that was imposed on 16 March 2020 due to COVID-19 measures.

[...] Flight VA253 was the 109th Ariane 5 mission.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 18 2020, @10:45PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 18 2020, @10:45PM (#1038570)

    So how does this launch compare to a SpaceX launch? According to the article "It is able to carry payloads weighing more than 10 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit and over 20 tonnes into low-Earth orbit"

    I'd really like to know how this compares to SpaceX in terms of payload, orbit and cost. It looks like SpaceX is knocking it out of the park in the rocket business. Competition is a great thing, so is Ariane competitive? Are there launch profiles that SpaceX can't handle that would give Ariane a marketing edge? Or are disposable launch systems just waiting out their turn to die?

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 19 2020, @06:36AM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday August 19 2020, @06:36AM (#1038746)

    The problem is that SpaceX can, if they choose, use their rockets in "disposable" mode to reach similar payload sizes to their competitors.

  • (Score: 2) by slap on Wednesday August 19 2020, @06:03PM

    by slap (5764) on Wednesday August 19 2020, @06:03PM (#1038936)

    "Falcon 9 can lift payloads of up to 22,800 kilograms (50,300 lb) to low Earth orbit, 8,300 kg (18,300 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) when expended, and 5,500 kg (12,100 lb) to GTO when the first stage is recovered."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 [wikipedia.org]