The European satellite consortium Eutelsat on Wednesday placed its 18th satellite in orbit aboard a modified Ariane-4 rocket launched from Kourou, Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana, launch headquarters near Paris said.
The 3.25-tonne payload was taken aloft at 2233 GMT before being hoisted into geostationary orbit, 35,900 kilometers (22,300 miles) aboard the Earth.
In the next few days, it will be slotted into position above the Equator, above the Gulf of Guinea, off the west coast of Africa.
The satellite, W1, has a scheduled lifespan of 12 years, with the capacity to handle Internet links, corporate networks and TV broadcasts between Europe and Africa.
Three other satellites in the W series, denoted as W2, W3 and W4, have already been launched. W1, built by France’s Aerospatiale, should have been launched earlier, but was destroyed in a fire in May 1998 and had to be rebuilt.
Geostationary orbit is the location of choice for communications satellites.
At this height, the period of revolution around the Earth is the same as the planet’s period of rotation, so that the satellite maintains a continuous position above the same spot on the globe.
Eutelsat is building five other satellites, which are due for launch by the first quarter of 2002.
Arianespace, which markets the European Space Agency (ESA) launcher, says it has orders to launch 38 other satellites, in business worth around three billion euros (2.7 billion dollars).
