CAIRO – 25 November 2019: Egypt’s first telecommunications satellite, Ariane 5 with TIBA-1 and Inmarsat GX5, will be launched on Monday at 11 p.m. following a delay of two days for technical issues.
"Arianespace has decided to stop the final operation for two days,” Stephane Israel, chief executive officer of Arianespace, said in a statement late on Friday. “The spacecrafts are in safe mode and we are now targeting a new launch window and we will keep you posted for sure,” he added.
TIBA-1 – which is based on the Eurostar 3000 satellite platform and was developed by Thales Alenia Space & Airbus Defence and Space – occupies the larger upper portion of the Ariane 5 payload fairing, and will be released first during the launch.
"TIBA-1 was designed with a lifetime of over 15 years on orbit. The satellite will be the fourth spacecraft launched by Arianespace for Egypt, the 127th Airbus satellite launched by Arianespace, and the 160th launch by the company for Thales Alenia Space,"Nasa added.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced in a statement that the launcher and its two satellite passengers – TIBA-1 and Inmarsat GX5 – in stand-by mode and will be launched at 21.08 GMT (22:08 CET), adding that the two passengers are being maintained in fully safe conditions.
Mon, Nov. 25, 2019
