Intelsat New Dawn and Co-Passenger Positioned for Lift-Off

One of the interesting things about launching on Ariane is that this is the only vehicle where we get to launch two satellites at a time. That means that Intelsat has a "roommate". The pairing is done by Arianespace about six months before launch. Arianespace ensures the two roommates are "compatible". There is usually the "small" roommate who is in the lower position, and the "bigger" roommates who "bunks" on top.

For this mission, Intelsat New Dawn has the lower position, as is typical for the smaller OSC satellites. For our last Ariane 5 launch in November 2010, Intelsat 17 (built by SSL) had the top position. As we don’t get to chose, we end up with a variety of roommates: Australian (Optus) for Intelsat 11; African (Rascom) for Horizons 2; British (Hylas) for Intelsat 17; and now United Arab Emirates (Yahsat) for Intelsat New Dawn.

Launching satellites is a true international endeavor!

Contributor: Jean-Luc Froeliger, Senior Director, Space Systems Acquisition