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How the spatial year 2010 ended-Part 3

PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:46 am
by spacesys
Wednesday, December 29 2010 the hangar ELA 3 of the Kourou space base in French Guiana was the scene of the last year's launch, when an Ariane 5 rocket was launched at 21:27 GMT to transfer on a GTO orbit a payload of two telecommunication satellites.
This was the 55th flight for an Ariane 5 rocket and the flight number 199 since 1979 when Ariane series went into operation.
Hispasat 1E satellite is the second in a series of five designed to bring a major improvement in the working capacity for the Spanish operator. Built by Space Systems/Loral on a LS-1300 platform under an agreeement signed in July 2008, the satellite weighting 5270 kg, will be joining the orbital position 30 degree West and share the position with two older platforms: Hispasat 1C and 1D launched in 2000 and 2002 respectively. From there it will operate for a period between 15 and 18 years, 53 Ku-band transporders providing services such as Fixed Satellite Services(FSS) and Broadcast Satellite Services (BSS) with coverage in Europe, North America and North Africa.
KOREASAT 6 is the 6th satellite of South Korea's KT Corporation. It's a 2622 kg satellite built in partnership by Thales Alenia Space and Orbital Sciences Corporation on a Star 2 platform. It will operate for a minimum of 15 years, from the 16 degrees East orbital slot, 30 Ku-band transporders with the stated purpose of providing HD-TV and 3D-TV mainly for the Korean peninsula.
Ariane 5 is the favorite canditate for commercial launches today because of proven reliability over time (since December 2002 when the ECA version has been introduced in use and when its inaugural flight also ended with the loss of the loaded satellites-Stentor and Hot Bird 7-the rocket has an impressive record of 36 flights without fail).
Ariane 5 has three contructive versions: GS, ES and ECA. The major difference is that the GS version uses a Vulcan 1 engine type for the first stage while the other two use the Vulcan 2 type engine. ECA is the only commercial launcher version capable of rising a total payload of 9.6 tons composed of two different platforms (satellites, together with the integration and protection equipment).
In length of 50.5m and with a total mass of 780 tons, the launcher makes use of two MPS Europropulsion engines using solid fuel with a thrust force of 5060kN (and a reaction time of 1300s), a cryogenic main stage Vulcan2 Snecma with the force of 1390kN (combustion time of 540s) and a final cryogenic stage ESC-A Astrium Space Transortation powered by a Snecma HM-7B engine with a force of 67kN and a reaction time of 945s.
Finaly, the top of the rocket houses the SYLDA internal structure surrounding the two satellites and the flight termal protection structure developed by Oerilikon Space.
In 2009 Ariane 5 managed 6 flights (5 in ECA version and 1 in GS) and the launch of 14 satellites: Hot Bird 10/NSS-9/Spirale A/Spirale B in February 2009, Heschel/Planck in May 2009, TerreStar-1 in July, JCSat 12 / Optus D3 in August, Amazonas 2/ COMSATbw-1 on 1 October, NSS-12/ Thor-6 on 29 October and finaly Helios 2B on 18 December. About these missions, Space Aliance reported in separate articles from 2009.
In 2010 all the six Ariane flights were made in ECA version: Astra 3B and ComsatBw 2 in March, Arabsat 5 A and COMS 1 in June, Nilesat 201 and RASCOM-QAF 1R in August, Eutelsat W3B and BSat 3b in October, Intelsat 17 and Hylas 1 on 26 November and finaly the flight on which we have given details in this article.