Fueling is underway at the Spaceport with EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 – the largest of two satellite passengers for Arianespace’s next Ariane 5 mission, scheduled to lift off from French Guiana late this month.
The satellite is being “topped off” in the S5A fueling and integration hall of the Spaceport’s S5 payload preparation center, marking another step in this spacecraft’s pre-launch processing.
EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 was built by Space Systems/Loral (SSL) for two users: European telecommunications operator Eutelsat Communications and Qatar’s Es’hailSat Satellite Company; with the high-power, multi-mission relay platform to provide flexible coverage over the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
The satellite is designed to deliver television broadcasting, telecommunications and government services with its Ku-band payload, while Ka-band relay capability is included to open business opportunities for both Eutelsat and Es’hailSat.
Based on Space Systems/Loral’s SSL 1300 spacecraft platform, EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 is equipped with four steerable spot beam antennas and four deployable reflectors, along with advanced command and telemetry capabilities. After deployment by Ariane 5, the satellite will be positioned at 25.5 degrees East longitude, with a designed operating lifetime of 15 years or more.
For Arianespace’s August 29 launch, EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 is to be installed in the upper position of Ariane 5’s payload “stack,” with the flight’s co-passenger – India’s GSAT-7 communications satellite from the Indian Space Research Organisation – riding below it.
The lift performance on this fourth heavy-lift Arianespace mission in 2013 will be more than 8,550 kg., which includes the 6,000-kg.-plus liftoff mass of EUTELSAT 25B/Es’hail 1 and GSAT-7’s estimated mass of 2,550 kg.
Designated Flight VA215 in Arianespace’s launcher family numbering system, the upcoming launch follows heavyweight Ariane 5 missions conducted so far this year from the Spaceport in July (Flight VA214, with Alphasat and INSAT-3D), during June (Flight VA213, orbiting the Automated Transfer Vehicle Albert Einstein), and in February (Flight VA212, with Amazonas 3 and Azerspace/Africasat-1a).
In other 2013 Arianespace launch activity, the medium-lift Soyuz was deployed in June from French Guiana with four O3b Networks satellites, and the lightweight Vega performed a Spaceport mission in May with the Proba-V, VNREDSat-1 and ESTCube-1 payloads.
Completing the company’s activity to date in 2013 was a February Soyuz flight from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, performed by Arianespace’s Starsem affiliate to loft six Globalstar second-generation satellites.
