Ariane 5 has delivered two satellites, JCSAT-17 and Geo-Kompsat-2B, into their planned transfer orbits.

Arianespace announced liftoff at 22:18 GMT (23:18 CET, 19:18 local time) this evening from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission lasted about 31 minutes.

JCSAT-17, with a launch mass of 5857 kg, was the first to be released after about 27 minutes. The 3379 kg GSAT-30 was released four minutes later.

JCSAT-17 is owned by the SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation and will deliver flexible, high-bandwidth communications to users in Japan and the surrounding region. It has a design life of 15 years.

Geo-Kompsat-2B will carry out Earth environment monitoring and ocean monitoring for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. It comprises two main payloads: GOCI II (Geostationary Ocean Color Imager II) and the GEMS (Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer). The satellite has a design life of more than 10 years.

The performance requested for this launch was about 10 206 kg. The satellites totalled about 9236 kg, with payload adapters and carrying structures making up the rest.

Flight VA252 was the 108th Ariane 5 mission.