Washington – April 21, 1999 – Satellite readiness issues have again caused a delay in the launch date for the 4th Ariane 5 launch French space industry sources told SpaceDaily this week.
This time, the AsiaStar payload will be late in final preparations in Toulouse, France and will not ship to the French Guiana Spaceport at Kourou until early July.
Launch of the Ariane 5 on what is scheduled to be its first commercial mission conducted by Arianespace will thus be pushed back from its current mid-June launch date.
Satellite checkout and integration on the launcher will also take several weeks, pushing the liftoff date to at least mid to late July at the earliest, sources suggest.
This Ariane 5 mission was originally set for launch in late winter, but was delayed until June by other payload preparation problems. This second delay will also effect the Indonesian Telkom-1 satellite, which is riding the vehicle as a second deployable satellite payload.
Overall, the launch may push other Ariane 5 commercial flights set for late 1999 into next year if Arianespace isn't able to make up the delay in later launch campaign schedules.
The delays won't effect other Ariane 4 launch plans, but these, too have been effected by "Manifest Management" problems with other satellites last year-problems which continue to plague the commercial space transportation industry.
AsiaStar is owned by Worldspace and is planned to offer a global radio broadcasting service using the satellite system.
