A new spacecraft, only the second-time to extend the life of older satellites, was launched on a European rocket on Saturday after weeks of delays due to weather and missile checks.
An Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket hit the Mission Extension Vehicle-2 (MEV-2) in space on Sunday (July 31), leaving the car on its way to an Intelsat satellite and waiting for an impulse in a higher orbit. Riding on the rocket sat two satellites for broadband communication.
Launch of the Guiana Space Center at Kourou, French Guiana at 7:04 pm local time (6:04 pm EDT or 2204 GMT), marking the fifth launch of 2020 for Arianespace.
It’s been a long road before the launch. The mission was originally planned for July 28, but was proposed to allow “additional technical controls required under the fairing and Ariane dual-launch system,” Arianespace said in a statement at the time. Bad weather prevented subsequent startup attempts from adding a few minutes delay to today’s launch. (It was initially planned to cancel EDT or 2133 GMT 31 minutes earlier at 17:33.)
Related: The 53-satellite launch of Arianespace Vega rocket delayed until August
MEV-2 will continue a series of satellite service missions for Intelsat. The first mission, MEV-1, successfully docked in February with the Intelsat 901 satellite, marking a historic first for satellite work. The hope is that repairing and refueling aging satellites will be a cheaper venture than launching replacement satellites into space.
With Intelsat 901 returning to full service in April, according to a statement from Intelsat, the company is now waiting for a second chance. MEV-2 was developed by the Northrop Grumman subsidiary SpaceLogistics LLC.MEV-2 is expected to participate and dock with the Intelsat 1002 / IS-1002 satellite, originally launched in 2004, sometimes beginning in 2021.
The space will use its own thrusters and fuel supply to control the orbit of the IS-1002 satellite, Arianespace said in a July 8 statement. MEV-2 will return the satellite to a geostationary orbit, where the satellite’s orbital period corresponds to the speed of the earth’s rotation. If all goes according to plan, MEV-2 will then launch from the Intelsat satellite in preparation for a future mission.
Also on the Ariane 5 rocket were two satellites designed for telecommunication services.
Arianespace also launched the Galaxy 30 satellite for Intelsat as part of a larger bid to replace the aging North American Galaxy set of satellites for broadcast services. Galaxy 30 and other satellites of its group will provide services such as ultra-high definition broadcasts, over-the-top service to stream consumers directly from the satellite, and a range of other services for broadband, mobile and enterprise.
The Maxar-built BSAT-4b satellite also provided space for the Japanese Broadcasting Satellite System Corp. The satellite will be used for direct services at home and will serve as a backup to another ultra-high definition satellite launched in 2017, called BSAT -4a.
Arianespace marks its fifth flight of 2020 following the temporary suspension of launches in French Guiana this March due to the new coronavirus pandemic. Test flights of the successor rocket to the heavy lift Ariane 5, named Ariane 6, will be delayed after at least 2021 due to the pandemic, the European Space Agency said this month.
“Although we know that the girls’ flight will not take place before the second semester of 2021, we are currently unable to accurately quantify the delay, and we can not provide an exact start date,” said Daniel Neuenschwander, Director of ESA of Space Transport, in a translation of commentary by agencies at a July 9 press event covered by SpaceNews. ESA officials added that they hope to have more clarity on the launch date in a few months.
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