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KOUROU, French Guiana, Oct. 12, 2006/Satnews
Daily/ ― The launch campaign for Arianespace's next heavy-lift
Ariane 5 mission moved into its final phase on Wednesday with the
go-ahead for launch, which was given following the readiness review
conducted at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
This key milestone, which is performed prior to every Ariane launch,
validates the readiness of Ariane 5, its satellite payload, the
Spaceport's infrastructure and the down-range tracking stations.
Arianespace said all is now set for the Thursday morning's rollout of
Ariane 5 from its Final Assembly Building to the ELA-3 launch zone. The
vehicle is installed on one of two mobile launch tables available for
Ariane 5, providing flexibility and reactivity for mission planning and
operations
The upcoming mission is Arianespace's fourth Ariane 5 flight of 2006.
Its DirecTV 9S television broadcast is the largest of the two primary
payloads on the launcher, with an estimated mass at liftoff of 5,535 kg.
DirecTV 9S will join the spacecraft fleet of U.S. digital television
service provider DirecTV, which serves more than 15.5 million customers.
Optus D1 will weigh in at 2,299 kg., and is to provide fixed
communications and satellite broadcast services over Australia and New
Zealand for Australia's Optus.
Also joining the two primary passengers is Japan's LDREX-2 auxiliary
payload, which is a sub-scale demonstrator of a lightweight antenna
reflector to be used on the Japanese ETS-8 engineering test satellite.
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