Categories: SatellitesSpace Flight

Friday Special: Two Rocket Launches in Less Than Two Hours

It was a busy launch day around the world on Friday. Above, the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the ST-2 and GSAT-8 communications satellites launched from Kourou, French Guiana, and below, about an hour and a half earlier, a Proton rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan bringing a Telstar 14R satellite to orbit. The Telstar satellite will provide communications services over the United States, Brazil and other parts of South America for Telesat of Canada, and the ST 2 will provide fixed and mobile voice and Internet to Asia and the Middle East.

Thanks to Chris Calubquib on Twitter for the updates and posting the launch videos on You Tube.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/