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Feature story

Arianespace's upcoming Ariane 5 mission to mark 24 years of dual satellite launches

December 19, 2005

This week's Ariane 5 mission is a special one for dual-satellite launches, as the spacecraft it carries are descendents of the first double-payload success for Ariane - which was performed in June 1981.

The dual payload for Ariane 5 consists of India's INSAT-4A (at top) and the European MSG-2, with a total mass at liftoff of 6,390 kg.

The subsequent 24 years of Ariane operations have demonstrated Arianespace's ability to team up payloads of different sizes, weights and mission applications on dual-payload flights that provide the mission capacity and flexibility to meet its customers' needs.

Spacecraft to be lofted on the upcoming Ariane 5 launch are INSAT-4A (the first in India's new series of telecommunications satellites), and the no. 2 Meteosat Second Generation (MSG-2) meteorological platform for Europe. The first Ariane payload success - conducted with an Ariane 1 launcher on June 19, 1981 - carried the Indian APPLE experimental geostationary communications satellite, along with the Meteosat F2 spacecraft.

A comparison of the satellite weights for these two missions underscores how the Ariane family of launchers have evolved to meet the evolution in spacecraft size and complexity during the past quarter century:

• The APPLE platform, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to validate C-band communications over the Indian subcontinent, had a liftoff mass of 670 kg. when launched in 1981. The INSAT-4A for this week's Ariane 5 mission has a mass at liftoff of approximately 3,100 kg. and carries a mixed communications payload of 12 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders.
  

• Europe's Meteosat F2 satellite weighed 649 kg. for its launch by Ariane 1, while the MSG-2 second-generation satellite to be carried by Ariane 5 has a liftoff mass of 2,034 kg.

The 1981 mission with Ariane 1 also carried a telemetry package called the CAT technological capsule, which provided basic information on the launcher's operation during flight. This additional passenger was a precursor for the numerous auxiliary payloads that have been added to Ariane payloads in the subsequent 24 years of missions.

Altogether, the pioneering dual-satellite Ariane 1 mission in 1981 carried a total payload mass of 1,678 kg., which compares to 6,390 kg. for the upcoming Ariane 5 flight. These figures take into account the interface adapters and other hardware used for installing and deploying the multiple payloads - including the Sylda dispenser system employed on Ariane 5.

Since June 1981, the Ariane launch family has performed more than 60 dual-payload flights, which have included civil and military telecommunications satellites, TV broadcast platforms, weather spacecraft and scientific probes.