Astrium, Europe's leading space technology company, completed last Thursday 2nd of August the 50th launch of Ariane 5, continuing a line of launch successes unbroken since 2003. Another record set with this launch is the geostationary transfer orbit payload capacity of nearly 10.2 tonnes; that is 130 kg more than the previous record, and this has made possible to send two satellites into orbit in a single launch.
Ariane 5 was launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana to place two communication satellites into a planned orbit: Intelsat 20 for the international operator Intelsat and Hylas 2 for the British operator Avanti Communications.
