With a blinding flash of light and the thunder of 220,000 pounds of thrust pushing the Ariane 5 ECA rocket off the launch pad Wednesday at Guiana Space Center, Intelsat 29e began the final leg of its mission to usher in a new era in commercial satellite communications.https://youtu.be/OZIgh3ej58kIntelsat 29e, the first of a planned constellation of at least seven Intelsat EpicNG high-throughput satellites (HTS), pierced the early evening darkness en route to geosynchronous orbit at 310 degrees East, over the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite will provide unprecedented coverage of South America, the Eastern two-thirds of the U.S. and flight routes between the U.S. and Europe.Thirty-eight minutes after the 6:20 EST liftoff, the satellite separated from the rocket’s upper stage and ground engineers confirmed signal acquisition. Click here for a video of the successful operation.The launch was the 137th for Intelsat, but “this was different from the previous 136,” Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler told the crowd gathered at the Arianespace facility in French Guiana. “Today’s launch represents a truly ‘epic’ moment in communications history.” With small spot beams that improve efficiency, and a high factor of frequency reuse that increases capacity, Intelsat EpicNG also offers inherent capabilities that can mitigate (?) intentional and unintentional jamming efforts. These attributes and more will enable EpicNG to outperform existing Ku satellites for airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The satellite can also transmit more information with equal or less satellite bandwidth than the U.S. government’s own Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) Ka-band platform. Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) usage continues to grow, both in numbers and sensor capability, escalating the need for bandwidth. This is capability U.S. Special Operations forces – among others — count on in their work in as many as 100 areas around the world in any given month.But that need also is felt in theaters over which RPAs have flown for more than a decade.Lt. Gen. Bob Otto, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for ISR, put the need for RPAs in perspective at a Washington breakfast recently in which he said “the unconstrained dependence on ISR” can never be met, even – or especially – with troop drawdowns. There were 11 full-motion video combat air patrols (CAPs) over Iraq in 2005-2007, he was quoted as saying in a story posted on aionline.com, and Central Command commanders complained that they met only one-third of the theater requirements. “Now we have 65 CAPs, yet CENTCOM says they are still only meeting 21 percent of the requirement,” Otto said.This requirement can be met with what Intelsat EpicNG can offer. EpicNG will deliver SATCOM data rates of up to 50 Mbps, without requiring any hardware changes to the existing antenna/modems installed on current RPA platforms.The U.S. military has long had a goal of alleviating stress on ground personnel by doing more ISR processing on the RPAs that collect data. As such, analysts are trying to cope with a growing flood of available data, particularly bandwidth-sapping full motion video. This increase in data has been difficult to accommodate because of on-board space limits for processing tools, and because of the bandwidth available for data transmission.Intelsat EpicNG opens the door to smaller satellite terminal use, with the possibility of sending as much as four times the sensor data to ground stations. Intelsat EpicNG‘s flexible, open architecture also supports continued use of legacy systems, critical in times of budget difficulty. Rather than requiring costly new, dedicated infrastructure and training to sync with the closed architecture of HTS platforms, such as Inmarsat Global Express, EpicNG customers will be able to use existing equipment enabling them to reap significant savings.The next satellite in the Intelsat EpicNG series is due to launch in the second half of the year. That satellite will cover the Africa-Middle East area, where mobile communications is sorely needed and where RPA bandwidth support is in high demand. ABOUT GTD AT KOUROU SPACE CENTERSince 2003, each time an Ariane 5, a Soyuz or a VEGA are launched from the spaceport in Guiana, as well as the payload, many hours of work are required from GTD’s technical teams.GTD supplies services and software in practically all steps of an Ariane 5 mission – from the launcher's flight program to the responsibility of ground systems that control the launching operations, as well as the radars, telemetry and mission control systems.Each launch is also a challenge for GTD’s team, who is responsible for all the computer systems at the launch site. Each launch is a fresh new project; there is no routine, which means our engineers always embark on an adventure than goes beyond technical jobs that require a lot of responsibility.Countdown: The campaign to prepare a launcher takes about 22 - 30 working days, and a campaign to prepare the payload (satellite) takes from 4 weeks to 5 months (depending on the mission and its magnitude). Our teams are currently able to launch up to seven double Ariane 5, up to four soyuz and up to two Vega per year, that is, 14 telecom satellites and 4 to 6 EO and scientific spacecraft every year.Launch day: The end of the countdown is near. The final operations to fill the liquid propellants on the Ariane 5, and then the ground operation tests are carried out on the launcher. During this stage, gtd's staff is working hard all round the Spaceport. In the launch site's bunker, the technical centre, in Des Pêres Mountain where the radar and telemetry installations are, in the meteorological centre where the last conditions before the launch is authorised.At the same time, a support team is configuring a backup of the computer systems in Barcelona, 8,000 km away from the Ariane 5, which is already letting out oxygen steam.Ariane is launched: Once the launcher is in the air, it is controlled on board (by the embedded computer) and from the Jupiter Control Centre (CDC). These two systems were also designed by GTD’s engineers and are currently being operated by GTD’s engineers, too. Once the launcher releases the payloads (at a height of 500 - 600 km), everyone breathes a sigh of relief and starts clapping and cheering and congratulating each other; but our engineers are already thinking about the next mission that starts the following morning...
