An Ariane 5, on its milestone 100th launch, has delivered the Horizons-3e and Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38 telecom satellites into their planned orbits.

Arianespace announced liftoff at 22:38 GMT (00:38 CEST on 26 September, 19:38 local time) yesterday from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission lasted about 42 minutes.

Horizons-3e, with a launch mass of 6441 kg, was the first to be released after about 28 minutes. The 3500 kg Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38 was released 14 minutes later.

Horizons-3e, owned and operated by Intelsat and Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT, will provide next-generation fixed and mobile communications to Asia-Pacific and the Pacific Ocean regions. Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38, a multi-mission satellite owned and operated by Azercosmos and Intelsat, provides improved communications for Europe, Asia and Africa. Both satellites have a design life of 15 years.

The performance requested for this launch was about 10 827 kg. The satellites totalled about 9941 kg, with payload adapters and carrying structures making up the rest.