The Ariane 5 Flight VA241 will deliver the SES-14 and Al Yah 3 satellites to geostationary transfer orbit on January 25.
With Ariane 5 in position at the Final Assembly Building, the launcher is ready to receive its two satellite passengers, which have undergone their own pre-flight preparations inside the Spaceport’s S5 payload processing facility. The forthcoming integration activity will be followed by final verifications and subsequent rollout to the ELA-3 complex for liftoff.
Arianespace is orbiting SES-14 for Luxembourg-based telecommunications satellite operator SES. The spacecraft will serve Latin America, the Caribbean, North America and the North Atlantic region with its C- and Ku-band wide beam coverage, as well as Ku-band high-throughput spot beams coverage. It was produced by Airbus.
SES-14 also has a NASA-funded hosted payload for the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, which is to deepen scientists’ understanding of the nearest reaches of space by providing unprecedented imaging of the Earth’s upper atmosphere from geostationary orbit.
Flight VA241’s Al Yah 3 passenger will be operated by Al Yah Satellite Communications Company PrJSC, which is located in the United Arab Emirates at Abu Dhabi. Once in orbit, the Orbital ATK-built, all-Ka-band spacecraft will provide affordable broadband communications to 60% of Africa’s population and more than 95% of Brazil’s population.
