November 14th, a Wednesday evening, in Korou, French Guiana—Arianespace successfully boosted two sats into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The Astrium built Skynet 5B is a military satcom for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). The Star One C1 comsat is for commercial operation by Brazilian operator Star One and was built by Thales Alenia Space. This was the 35th Ariane 5 launch and the 21st such success in a row. Plus, a new payload weight record was set—8,700 kg. Currently, the Ariane 5 is the only commercial launcher that’s capable of simultaneously launching two payloads. There’s one more Ariane 5 launch scheduled for this year.
The Skynet 5B is being launched on behalf of Astrium, which is delivering the satellite into orbit to Paradigm, a private firm that will offer secure communications service for the British armed forces, NATO and other countries. The satellite uses a Eurostar 3000 platform and it will be positioned at 56° E. The Star One C1 satellite was built by Thales Alenia Space and is based on a Spacebus 3000 B3 platform and it will be positioned at 65° W.
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