June 25, 2013

Fifth successful launch for Soyuz from the Guiana Space Centre - Orbits first four satellites of the O3b constellation

Tuesday 25 June at 16:27 local time (21:27 CET), Soyuz accomplished another flawless launch from Europe’s spaceport at the Guiana Space Centre, orbiting 2 hours 22 minutes later the first four satellites of the O3b constellation.

The O3b satellites were built for operator O3b Networks Limited by prime contractor Thales Alenia Space.

Placed in an equatorial orbit at an altitude of 8,062 kilometres, the Ka-band satellites will offer low-cost telecommunications and broadband Internet to the three billion people in the world still without these services (O3b stands for “Other 3 billion”).

O3b Networks Limited will bring telecommunications operators in the emerging markets of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Pacific and Middle East—covering nearly 180 countries—connectivity for mobile networks with data rates and latencies approaching those obtained by fibre-optic systems.

On the occasion of this launch, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall said: “I would like to congratulate all the teams who made this launch a success: those at ESA, Roscosmos and Arianespace, across Europe’s and Russia’s space industries and of course at CNES, who built the Soyuz launch complex together in French Guiana and have now completed this launch, the fourth this year from the Guiana Space Centre.”


CNES press contacts:
Alain Delrieu – Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
Pascale Bresson – Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39 pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet – Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37 julien.watelet@cnes.fr
Press office – Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 76 88 cnes-presse@cnes.fr

www.cnes.fr/presse