Ariane 5 gears up to blast off with ISRO's GSAT-15 satellite

Chennai: European space agency Arianespace is gearing up for the Tuesday evening launch of Indian communication satellite GSAT-15 and Arabsat-6B through its rocket Ariane 5 from the spaceport in French Guiana, the space agency said.

In a statement issued early Tuesday, Arianespace said it has delivered another Ariane 5 rocket to the launch zone at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana.

On Monday, the rocket rolled out from the launcher final assembly building to the launch pad and is scheduled for lift off during a 43-minute window that opens on November 10 at 6.34 p.m. local time in French Guiana.

The rocket is scheduled to blast-off between 3.04 a.m. and 3.47 a.m. on November 11 as per Indian time.

The Indian satellite GSAT-15 is designed to deliver telecommunications services, along with dedicated navigation-aid and emergency services.

Built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), it will be the 19th payload launched by Arianespace for this customer - which is one of the world's six largest space agencies.

The Indian satellite with a design life of 12 years will have 24 Ku-band transponders (automatic receivers and transmitters of radio signals) and two GAGAN (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation) transponders.