On July 30 at 21:00 UTC, an Ariane 5 ECA rocket launched the Star One and Eutelsat Quantum satellites into a geostationary transfer orbit. The rocket took off and almost immediately disappeared into a low cloud bank, reappearing a few seconds later, but the webcast switched to animation and stayed on it for the rest of the flight.

This was the Ariane 5’s first launch in almost a year after it was grounded following payload fairing issues. These issues are particularly important to solve because an upcoming Ariane 5 flight will carry the long-delayed gilded infrared space telescope which shall not be named towards its final position at L2 out past the Moon. The ULA Atlas V 500 series rockets also halted all but one launch because they use a similar fairing made by the same manufacturer.

The launch was successful, and the two payloads were deployed at the proper times. Star One is a fairly conventional communications satellite with lots of transponders in different bands and will be used to provide direct-to-home television, broadband internet, and other services in Brazil and neighboring countries in South America.

Eutelsat Quantum is pretty neat. Instead of having a lot of individual band transponders like Star One D2, it is a completely software-defined satellite — the first commercial satellite of its kind according to its manufacturer. It can be commanded to change its coverage and frequency to different areas while in orbit, allowing it to be used for many missions over its fifteen-year lifetime. The satellite is a collaboration between Eutelsat, Airbus, and the European Space Agency.

The total payload mass inserted into orbit by the Ariane 5 was a massive 10,515 kilograms between the two payloads and the necessary adapters and other hardware. That’s about 5,200 two-liter soda bottles. The mission duration from launch to second satellite separation was 36 minutes and 24 seconds.

More Information

PDF: July 2021 Launch Kit VA254 (Arianespace)

Future Satellites (Eutelsat)

Star One D2 info page (Gunter’s Space Page)

Eutelsat Quantum info page (Gunter’s Space Page)

Launch video