An Ariane 5 rocket will fire into the sky from French Guiana Thursday evening and deliver a record heavyweight payload to orbit less than an hour later.
The nearly 180-foot-tall (55-meter) launcher will blast off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 2345 GMT (7:45 p.m. EDT; 8:45 p.m. French Guiana time) on its third flight of the year with the ViaSat 2 and Eutelsat 172B communications satellite.
Made in California by Boeing and in France by Airbus Defense and Space, respectively, ViaSat 2 and Eutelsat 172B will ride aboard the Ariane 5 in a dual-payload stack. The larger of the two satellites, ViaSat 2, will deploy first, followed by separation of Eutelsat 172B around 41 minutes after liftoff.
The rocket will target an orbit ranging from 155 miles (250 kilometers) to 22,186 miles (35,706 kilometers), with a tilt of 6 degrees to the equator.
Date source: Arianespace
T-0:00:00: Vulcain 2 ignition
The Ariane 5’s first stage Vulcain 2 main engine ignites as the countdown clock hits zero, throttling up to about 300,000 pounds of thrust and undergoing a computer health check before liftoff.
T+0:00:07: Solid rocket booster ignition and liftoff
The Ariane 5’s two solid rocket boosters ignite seven seconds later, each generating more than 1.3 million pounds of thrust, to push the vehicle into the sky from the ELA-3 launch pad.
T+0:00:50: Mach 1
The Ariane 5 rocket surpasses the speed of sound, heading east over the Atlantic Ocean.
T+0:02:21: Solid rocket boosters jettisoned
After each consuming 240 metric tons, or about 530,000 pounds, of pre-packed propellant, the solid rocket boosters are jettisoned.
T+0:03:22: Payload fairing jettisoned
The Ariane 5’s 17.7-foot-diameter (5.4-meter) payload fairing, made in Switzerland by Ruag Space, releases in a clamshell-like fashion once the rocket flies above the denser, lower layers of Earth’s atmosphere.
T+0:08:56: Vulcain 2 shutdown
The Ariane 5’s core stage Vulcain 2 main engine shuts down after consuming 175 metric tons (385,000 pounds) of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.
T+0:09:02: Stage separation
The Ariane 5’s first and second stages separate. The 98-foot-long (30-meter) first stage will fall into the Atlantic Ocean near the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa.
T+0:09:06: HM7B ignition
The Ariane 5’s upper stage HM7B engine ignites for a 16-minute, 21-second burn to place the ViaSat 2 and Eutelsat 172B satellites into geostationary transfer orbit. The HM7B engine burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and generates more than 14,000 pounds of thrust.
T+0:25:27: HM7B shutdown
The HM7B engine shuts down after placing the ViaSat 2 and Eutelsat 172B satellites into geostationary transfer orbit with a low point of 155 miles (250 kilometers), a high point of 22,186 miles (35,706 kilometers), and an inclination of 6 degrees to the equator.
T+0:29:26: ViaSat 2 separation
The ViaSat 2 satellite, riding in the upper position on the Ariane 5’s dual-payload stack, deploys to begin a 15-year mission providing broadband Internet over North America, Central America, the Caribbean, northern South America and for trans-Atlantic air routes.
T+0:31:55: Sylda 5 separation
The Sylda 5 dual-payload adapter structure jettisons from the Ariane 5 upper stage, revealing the Eutelsat 172B spacecraft for deployment.
T+0:41:47: Eutelsat 172B separation
The Eutelsat 172B spacecraft is released from the Ariane 5 launcher to provide video and broadband services over the Asia-Pacific.
A Russian Proton rocket lifted off Thursday with a U.S.-built communications satellite to broadcast television over Latin America, firing into orbit from the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
South Korea’s Anasis 2 military communications satellite, built in Europe by Airbus, lifted off Monday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Launch occurred at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT).
These images captured by photographer Gene Blevins show Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo space plane making its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday over California’s Mojave Desert, then gliding back to a runway landing.
