Lots of activity at the satellite staging area of Ariane 5's Final Assembly Building at the Spaceport in French Guiana, where the final payload integration is underway for Arianespace's fifth Ariane 5 mission of 2009. Here the ogive-shaped fairing was lowered into place over Amazonas 2 resulting in the telecommunications' satellite now being encapsulated in its payload fairing, which will protect the satellite during Ariane 5's climb-out through the atmosphere's dense layers.
Photo on right: Ariane 5’s payload fairing is hoisted into position for installation over Amazonas 2 in the satellite staging area of the Spaceport’s Final Assembly Building.

With a liftoff mass of approximately 5,500 kg., Amazonas 2 is to operate from a final orbital slot of 61 deg. West. This satellite will provide the Spanish-based HISPASAT telecommunications operator with relay capacity over the Americas, with its coverage area extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The Madrid-based HISPASAT was established in 1989 with the goal of becoming the leading satellite operator in the Spanish and Portuguese language markets.  Arianespace has supported HISPASAT’s development of its satellite fleet — providing launch services to orbit three spacecraft: Hispasat 1B in 1993, XTAR-EUR in 2005 and Spainsat in 2006.

  HISPASAT's Amazonas 2 will ride as the upper payload on Ariane 5's next flight, scheduled later this month, while the German COMSATBw-1 military communications' satellite is to be positioned below it as the lower satellite passenger in the payload "stack."  COMSATBw-1 will play an important role in the German Bundeswehr’s (German Armed Forces) concept for network-centric operations.  This spacecraft is conceived for the relay of secure information for use by units on deployed missions including voice, fax, data, video and multimedia applications.  Its coverage area stretches from America to eastern Asia.
Photo on left: Amazonas 2 is readied in the Spaceport’s S5 payload preparation facility for Ariane 5’s fifth launch of 2009

It is based on EADS Astrium's Eurostar E3000 spacecraft bus, and has been designed for a useful lifetime of 15 years.  Amazonas 2 is to handle a wide range of communications services, including direct-to-home television, through its 54 Ku-band transponders and 10 C-band transponders. You can follow Arianespace's launch activity at: