A Japanese civilian communications satellite and a French military communications satellite was put into orbit via an Ariane-5 rocket. The launch happened in French Guiana, at Europe's space base in Kourou, on the northeast coast of South America.

Aboard the blasted rocket was a JCSAT-10 satellite for Japan's JSAT Corporation. Built by Lockheed Martin in the United States, the satellite - released into the orbit twenty-seven minutes after the launch - was designed to broadcast high definition television to the Asia-Pacific region. Explained by JSAT Corporation officials, it would be the "Sky Perfect TV" system that broadcasts 251 television channels.

Five minutes later, Syracuse 3B, a military communications satellite built by a European industrial consortium for France's Defense Ministry, was released as well into space. According to the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA), it was necessary to have a dedicated military communications satellite network as satellites shared with civilian operators risked being immobilized by relatively unsophisticated means.

The Ariane-5 rocket was the third to be launched this year.

Even if the weather seem to not want to cooperate with them, one of the rockets of Arianespace - the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency, blasted off just this last Saturday with two satellites. The rocket, tagged as the Ariane-5, cruised through the skies thanks to the power that came from its cryogenic main engine and from its two boosters.

It was launched from the Kourou launch center, about 40 miles from French Guiana's capital, Cayenne, at about 6:10pm (2210 GMT). When the rocket reached an altitude of 1,400 kilometers (27 minutes after takeoff), it released one of its two satellites - Mexico's Satmex 6. After five minutes, the other satellite - Thaicom 6 - followed suit. This one was for a private Thail telecommunications company.

The blastoff was orginally scheduled to occur last May 26, 2006 (Friday), it was postponed because of equipment alerts. This was Ariane's heaviest payload to date, and Arianespace chief Jean Yves Le-Gall  promised that they will get better soon.

The commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency, has scheduled four more Ariane rockets to launch this year, the next one in August. The company is also building a launch pad for Russian Soyuz rockets in Kourou, and the first Soyuz takeoff is set for November 2008.