The Arianespace Center in French Guiana is one busy place as it keeps up its mission pace with two Ariane 5s now in process at French Guiana, in addition to the vehicle involved in the August 21st flight, with a payload of two telecommunications satellites.

A total of seven Ariane 5 missions are targeted for 2009 making it the busiest year of activity since Arianespace’s commercial introduction of the workhorse launcher in 1999.

Friday’s launch sends into orbit U.S.-built payloads for two key Arianespace customers in the Asia-Pacific region: JCSAT-12 for Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, and Optus D3 for the Optus telecommunications provider of Australia.  These two satellites weigh a combined total of 6,500 kg., and they will be injected into geostationary transfer orbit during a flight lasting just over 34 minutes.

Separately, the components for another Ariane 5 arrived in French Guiana delivered by the MN Colibri, which is one of two roll-on/roll-off sea-going vessels operated for Arianespace to transport launch vehicles from their European manufacturers to South America.  The elements for this latest Ariane 5 will be moved by road from Pariacabo port near Kourou to the Spaceport, enabling its assembly to begin shortly in the Launcher Integration Building.

You can follow Arianespace's launch activity at.