With the Launch Contract of Intelsat 36, Arianespace and Intelsat Confirm a 30 year Partnership

September 8, 2014

Arianespace announced that it will launch the Intelsat 36 spacecraft for its longstanding customer Intelsat. 

Weighing 3.4 metric tons at launch, Intelsat 36 will be injected into geostationary transfer orbit by an Ariane 5 ECA, the world’s most reliable heavy lift vehicle, during the third quarter of 2016. The launch will take place at the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 

Intelsat 36 will be built by Space Systems/Loral (SSL) of Palo Alto, Calif. Based on SSL’s 1300 platform, the payload will enable media and content distribution services in Africa and South Asia. 

“As part of our long term partnership, we are very honored to be entrusted yet again by Intelsat with launching this new satellite. Our longstanding relationship goes back three decades, to practically the inception of our company. IS-36 will be the 55th satellite that we will have launched for Intelsat,” said Stephane Israel, Chairman & CEO of Arianespace.