...have entered their checkout phase at the Spaceport, readying them for a June flight on Arianespace’s fifth mission from French Guiana with its medium-lift Soyuz launcher. These satellites are now inside the Spaceport’s S1A clean room facility, and have been removed from the shipping containers that protected them during a trans-Atlantic cargo jetliner flight from Europe to the equatorial launch site.

The four O3b satellites are shown at the Spaceport during their removal from the shipping containers that protected them during shipment from Thales Alenia Space in Italy to French Guiana.
Photo courtesy of Arianespace.

The spacecraft have a trapezoidal-shaped main body to facilitate their integration on the payload dispenser system to be utilized on the upcoming Soyuz mission. Operating in Ka-band, the Thales Alenia Space-built satellites will be positioned at a medium-orbit altitude of 8,063km.—offering high-speed, low-cost, low-latency Internet and telecommunications services for O3b customers in emerging markets. In addition to the first batch of O3b spacecraft to be lofted by the Soyuz mission in June, another Arianespace flight is scheduled to orbit four more later this year for the company, followed by an additional four in 2014.

As checkout of the O3b satellites gains momentum, activity also is underway in the Spaceport’s northwestern sector to ready their Soyuz vehicle and its ELS launch site for the upcoming mission—which is designated Flight VS05 in Arianespace’s launcher family numbering system. This includes preparations with the Fregat upper stage in Soyuz’ MiK launcher assembly building, as well as routine launch pad maintenance that is performed between missions.