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Ariane 5 soars to another heavy-lift success
01/07/09
The Ariane 5's 31st consecutive mission success was another record-setting flight for this workhorse Arianespace launcher & lofting the world's largest commercial satellite, TerreStar-1, from the Spaceport in French Guiana today.
Lifting off from the ELA-3 launch zone on a rare afternoon departure, the Ariane 5 deployed TerreStar-1 into geostationary transfer orbit 26 minutes later. With a launch mass of nearly 6,910 kg., TerreStar-1 was carried as a solo payload on the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA mission, which followed Arianespace's most recent flight by less than two months.
