An Ariane 5 has delivered the Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat-4 and GSAT-31 telecom satellites into their planned orbits.

Arianespace announced liftoff at 21:01 GMT (22:01 CET, 18:01 local time) this evening from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission lasted about 42 minutes.

Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat-4 (SGS-1/HS-4), with a launch mass of 6495 kg, was the first to be released after about 27 minutes. The 2536 kg GSAT-31 was released 15 minutes later.

SGS-1/HS-4 is a joint mission between Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology and Hellas-Sat, a subsidiary of Arabsat based in Cyprus. It provides telecommunications capabilities, including television, internet, telephone and secure communications in the Middle East, South Africa and Europe. SGS-1/HS-4 has a design life of more than 15 years.

GSAT-31, owned and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation, provides communications services for India. The satellite has a design life of more than 15 years.

The performance requested for this launch was about 10 052 kg. The satellites totalled about 9031 kg, with payload adapters and carrying structures making up the rest.

Flight VA247 was the 103rd Ariane 5 mission.