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ARIANESPACE FLIGHT 159

February 15: Arianespace ends an era with a successful career-closing 
Ariane 4 mission

Arianespace's workhorse Ariane 4 completed its highly successful 
career tonight with a trademark picture-perfect mission -- placing its 
Intelsat 907 payload into geostationary transfer orbit.

The early morning launch marked the final flight of an Ariane 4, and 
the 116th mission of this launcher version -- which entered service in 
1988 and successfully orbited 158 primary payloads (plus 27 auxiliary 
passengers) with a combined mass of over 400 metric tons.

Following three days of postponements due to high-altitude winds above 
the Spaceport, the historic mission took off right on time at the 
opening of a one-hour launch window. As if in tribute to the Ariane 
4's career-closing mission, the weather cooperated by offering clear 
skies -- which allowed the launcher's initial climbout to be viewed, 
including the separation of the four first-stage strap-on boosters at 
approximately 2 min. 30 sec. into the flight.

Flight 159 was Arianespace's first mission of 2003, and will be 
followed by four to five launches of the heavy-lift Ariane 5 -- the 
next-generation successor to Ariane 4.

Arianespace Chief Executive Officer Jean-Yves Le Gall also announced 
the company's first commercial launch contract of 2003: the WildBlue 1 
broadband satellite for WildBlue Communications. WildBlue 1 is one of 
the first fully-dedicated Ka-band satellites for consumer high-speed 
Internet service, and it will be launched by an Ariane 5.

This morning's mission lofted the 23rd Intelsat telecommunications 
payload orbited by Ariane, which was the sixth Intelsat IX-series 
spacecraft carried by Ariane 4. Flight 159 was the 74th consecutive 
successful launch of an Ariane 4.

Ariane 4 entered service in June 1988 as a follow-on to the Ariane 1-3
vehicles, which paved the way for Arianespace's leadership position in 
the commercial launch services market.

With its building-block design, Ariane 4 allowed a full range of 
payloads to be lofted by a family of lsunchers -- all sharing the same 
basic design for streamlined operations, as well as a standardized 
payload interface for customers.

Ariane 4 enabled Arianespace to regularly pair up two satellite 
payloads for shared dual missions -- increasing the company's 
competitiveness and enabling customers to share the mission costs.

Arianespace's flexibility in handling spacecraft payloads and adapting 
to the availability of its customer payloads has become a company 
trademark.

This experience will be applied to the Ariane 5 - with the new 
launcher's increased payload capability allowing even large payloads 
to be paired up.

For this morning's final mission, Arianespace used an Ariane 44L 
version of Ariane 4 equipped with the four large liquid strap-on 
boosters for additional thrust at liftoff and during initial ascent. 
The total mass placed into orbit was an estimated 4,722 kg. (Intelsat 
907 weighed in at approximately 4,680 kg., while the spacecraft 
interface adapter weighed 42.5 kg.).

Major participants in the Ariane 4 program included: EADS Launch 
Vehicles (industrial lead contractor and prime for the first and third 
stages); Astrium GmbH for the second stage and solid strap-on 
boosters; Fiat-Avio and EADS Launch Vehicles for the solid propellant 
strap-on boosters; Astrium France for the vehicle equipment bay; 
Astrium UK for the SPELDA multiple payload deployment system; and 
Contraves Space for the payload fairing.

During its operational lifetime, the all-time record for Ariane 4 was 
the 4,947 kg. mass orbited by an Ariane 44L in 1998 on Flight 113, 
which carried the AfriStar and GE-5 satellites.

Flight 159 was performed from the Spaceport's ELA-2 launch complex, 
which has been the location of 119 Ariane liftoffs since the facility 
entered service in 1986. Arianespace's mission activity now shifts to 
the ELA-3 facility, which was built for Ariane 5 launch operations.

Today's mission also marked a historic milestone for Intelsat -- as 
its final Intelsat IX-series satellite was carried aboard the Ariane 
4.


Ariane 4 Family Launches by Version
Launcher type  Configuration  Number of launches
(% of launches)  Maximum mass orbited
(Flight # and payload)
Ariane 40
 Baseline version
 7 (6%)
 2,800 kg.
(Flight 107 - Spot 4)

Ariane 42P
 Two solid strap-on boosters
 15 (13%)
 3,063 kg.
(Flight 57 - Galaxy 4)

Ariane 44P
 Four solid strap-on boosters
 15 (13%)
 3,577 kg.
(Flight 137 - Eurasiasat 1)

Ariane 42L
 Two solid strap-on boosters
 13 (11%)
 3,572 kg.
(Flight 133 - N-Star 110)

Ariane 44LP
 Two solid + two liquid boosters
 26 (22%)
 4,330 kg.
(Flight 95 - Thaicom3 + B-SAT1a)

Ariane 44L
 Four liquid strap-on boosters
 40 (35%)
 4,947 kg.
(Flight 113 - AfriStar + GE 5)

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