Posted: Thu, Sep 22, 2011, 6:58 AM ET (1058 GMT)
An Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched two satellites on Wednesday night, a day after a previous launch attempt was postponed by a strike. The Ariane 5 ECA lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 5:38 pm EDT (2138 GMT) and placed the Arabsat 5C and SES-2 satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbits about a half-hour later. Arabsat 5C, built jointly by EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, weighed 4,630 kilograms at launch; it will provide C- and Ka-band communications services from 20 degrees east in GEO. SES-2, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, weighed 3,200 kilograms at launch; it will provide C- and Ku-band communications services from 87 degrees west. SES-2 also carries an experimental infrared sensor as a hosted payload for the US Air Force. The launch, the fifth this year for the Ariane 5, had been scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed when workers at the spaceport went on strike earlier that day. The workers ended their brief strike before yesterday's launch.
