Ariane rocket launches satellites

By Laurent Marot

KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - A heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Friday putting into orbit telecommunications satellites for Brazil and Vietnam, space officials said.

The rocket launched from Europe's space base in Kourou, on the northeast coast of South America, at 7:17 p.m. (2217 GMT).

Twenty-six minutes after launch, the rocket released into a preliminary orbit Star One C2, a telecommunications satellite for Brazil's telecoms operator Embratel.

Star One C2, the second in the Star One satellite series, weighed 4.1 metric tons (9,000 pounds) at launch and was built by the Franco-Italian consortium Thales Alenia Space.

It is designed to operate for 15 years providing direct-to-home television broadcasting, high speed internet and data transmissions throughout South America, Mexico and Florida.

"C2's orbital slot has more than 20 million TV dishes," said Lincoln Oliveira, Star One's chief technical officer.

"We will be able to cover for the first time Mexico, San Francisco, Los Angeles in addition to Florida and South America. This is a demonstration of the vision of Embratel and its controller TELMEX in terms of empowering Star One to be the leading satellite operator in Latin America."

Five minutes after Star One's separation, the rocket released VINASAT-1, Vietnam's first telecommunications satellite, which is designed to improve Vietnam's communications infrastructure.