Arianespace 203 is go!

[Larry-G]

Following the unfavourable weather conditions which led to the postponement of the scheduled August 5 launch of Arianespace Flight 203, the craft was successfully launched on August 6th at 19.52 pm local time (00:52 pm Central European Summer Time August 7th) from Kourou, French Guiana. The mission placed into geostationary transfer orbit the Astra 1N and BSAT-3c/JCSAT-110R telecommunications satellites.

Astra 1N will be brought into commercial service within the next weeks after extensive in-orbit testing.

“The successful launch of Astra 1N is another important milestone in our ambitious launch manifest for 2011, which will see four additional SES launches before year-end,” said Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES. “Astra 1N will greatly enhance the flexibility of SES’s Astra satellite fleet at two key SES orbital slots over Europe and we would like to thank our longstanding partners Astrium and Arianespace for this mission success.”

http://www.advanced-television.com/index.php/2011/08/06/arianespace-launch-delayed/

 

[bassethound]

Nice to see a successful launch for a change for a European bound satellite

 

[Larry-G]

yeah i had visions of the whole thing going up in a puff of blue smoke and putting the expansion of 28.2 east back several years. at least now if all the in orbit trials go well we should start to see things happening in a few weeks.