Ariane rocket puts Indian satellite in orbit
Friday April 2, 8:19 pm Eastern Time
(Adds details, background)
By Alexander Miles
KOUROU, French Guiana, April 2 (Reuters) - Western Europe's 117th Ariane rocket placed into orbit a multipurpose satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)after a textbook launch from French Guiana on Friday, the Arianespace rocket launch company said.
The Ariane 42P rocket, equipped with two solid strap-on boosters, blasted off at 7.03 p.m. local time (5:03 p.m. EST) (2203 GMT) from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch center in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America.
Twenty-one minutes after launch, space officials said the INSAT 2E satellite separated from the rocket. INSAT 2E was built in India and weighs 5,500 pounds (2.5 tonnes). It will provide telecommunications and meteorology services to the Indian subcontinent, Asia and Australia.
ISRO officials said the cost of the satellite, launch and insurance was $120 million. Washington-based INTELSAT has leased nine of the satellite's 17 communications transponders and the lease is expected to generate $100 million of foreign exchange for India.
Friday's launch was the second of 13 scheduled Ariane missions for 1999 and the 44th consecutive successful launch of an Ariane-4 rocket.
Paris-based Arianespace, which launches and markets the Ariane rocket series, said it had 38 heavy satellites on order to be launched, worth an estimated $3.5 billion.
The company's launch operations have been hampered in recent years by the inability of satellite manufacturers to deliver their
spacecraft on time.
Launching communications satellites from sites close to the equator is more advantageous than from higher latitudes as rockets need less thrust to achieve orbit.
Until this week, the Kourou base was the world's only commercial launch site near the equator, giving Arianespace an edge in the lucrative market to launch communications satellites.
But last Saturday, an international consortium led by U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co. successfully test-launched a Ukrainian Zenit rocket from the Sea Launch floating platform near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. Sea Launch is expected to cut into Arianespace's market share -- a company that has dominated the satellite launch market since the late 1980s.
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