India will put up an advanced communications satellite in February aboard an Arianespace rocket, an official for the European space consortium said Wednesday.

The first of India's Insat-3 satellite series would be launched from an Ariane-5 rocket, Didier Aubin, director of sales and marketing, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

Aubin said the Insat-3B launch would be the second commercial launch for the Ariane-5, which the company claims is more reliable than the Ariane-4.

He said the new vehicle had a higher payload capability and a design reliability of 98.6 percent compared to 97 percent reliability for the Ariane-4.

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