Ariane 5’s sky-lighting blastoff

An Ariane 5 launcher fired into space Thursday from French Guiana, hauling two commercial satellites destined to broadcast television to Latin America for Intelsat, DirecTV and Argentina’s national telecom company.

The photos below show the evening blastoff from the jungle.

Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace - Optique Video du CSG - JM Guillon
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – JM Guillon
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace - Optique Video du CSG
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace - Optique Video du CSG - S. Martin
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace - Optique Video du CSG - S. Martin
Photo credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin