May 23 1981
From The Space Library
NASA launched the world's largest telecommunications satellite, INTELSAT V-2, from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas Centaur at 6:42 p.m. EDT into a highly elliptical transfer orbit with 35,960-kilometer apogee, 172-kilometer perigee, 633.9-minute period, and 24.1° inclination. Originally scheduled for May 21, the launch was delayed by computer problems in the rocket's main safety-control system.
The huge communications satellite, weighing more than 2 tons, was second in a new series of nine international communications satellites the first having been launched December 9, 1980, as an on-orbit spare for the Atlantic network, which would eventually consist of four satellites. The first five INTELSAT Vs would be launched by Atlas Centaur; the next three, by Europe's Ariane booster. Average estimated cost of an Atlas Centaur launch was $42 million; that of an Ariane launch was $27 million. Overall cost of the INTELSAT V program was $680 million, or some $76 million for each mission; estimated average cost of each satellite was $34 million.
INTELSAT V-2, after coming on station at 355°E for a month of testing, would be operational by July at 335.5°E, handling communications between the Americas and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It could transmit 12,000 telephone calls simultaneously in addition to two television color channels, having twice the capacity of INTELSAT IV As previously launched by NASA for INTELSAT. The 106-nation organization jointly owned and operated 12 satellites over the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans in order to handle two thirds of the world's overseas communications, from telegrams and telephone calls to television and data.
In 1984, INTELSAT would begin a series of three improved INTELSAT VAs capable of 15,000 simultaneous telephone calls and two television channels; 1986 would inaugurate INTELSAT VIs, each handling more than 40,000 simultaneous telephone calls and two television channels and designed for launch by either the Ariane or the Space Shuttle. (NASA MOR-491-203-81-02 [prelaunch] May 20/81, [postlaunch] June 17/81; NASA Release 81-60; INTELSAT Release 81-10-1; W Post, May 24/81, A-3, DISD, May 27/81, 140; AID, May 28/81, 151; Spacewarn SPX 332, June 30/81)
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