Arianespace’s first 2017 mission opens a fast-paced year of launch activity

Departing at the exact planned liftoff moment of 10:03:34 p.m. (local time in French Guiana), Soyuz flew a 32-minute profile to release its satellite passenger into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) – the first mission that Arianespace’s medium-lift Soyuz has performed for a GTO deployment while operating from the Spaceport. Today’s success was Soyuz’ 16th launch from French Guiana since it began service at the Spaceport in 2011, and was designated Flight VS16 in Arianespace’s launcher family numbering system. The workhorse Soyuz vehicle previously delivered payloads on Spaceport missions to circular Earth orbits, low-Earth orbits, Sun-Synchronous orbits, and an elliptical orbit for an Earth escape trajectory. More

(Source: Space Ref - Jan 28)