New Ariane Rocket in Flawless Mission

The first of a new generation of Western Europe’s Ariane space rockets placed three satellites into orbit in a faultless mission from a South American launch pad on Wednesday.

The successful launch of the Ariane-4 will stir up competition in the expanding world satellite launch market and help cut launch costs in the 1990s, space officials said.

The 200-foot Ariane-4 launcher lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, into a clear blue sky, marking a new step in Europe’s bid to corner a large share of the world satellite launch market.

The launcher, carrying four distinctive strap-on fuel boosters for the first time, will be used for the rest of the century by Arianespace, which now holds more than 50% of the world satellite launch market.

“Another dream of the Ariane program has become a reality,” said Jorg Feustel-Buechl, director of space transport systems at the European Space Agency.

Nineteen minutes into the flight, with 315 metric tons of fuel burned, a European weather satellite Meteosat P2 was slipped from the rocket. Meteosat, weighing 1,500 pounds, is used to produce photographs of the Earth and its changing weather patterns that are regularly seen on television weather forecasts.

Moments later, Amsat 111 C, a 300-pound West German-built satellite, followed Meteosat into space. The three-pointed star-shaped Amsat will ensure that radio amateurs around the world can stay in touch with each other.

Twenty-three minutes into the launch the biggest satellite, the 2,680-pound Pan American Satellite 1 was launched. This satellite will make sophisticated telecommunications available to many areas of the world previously too remote or too densely populated to be served practically.

Arianespace officials said five launches are planned before the end of this year. Most will be earlier-generation Ariane-2 or Ariane-3 rockets, but another Ariane-4--its first wholly commercial flight--will be launched in November.

The next launch will be on July 21, when an Ariane-3 will carry Indian and European telecommunications satellites into space.