The firing of the Ariane 5 rocket, scheduled for Friday shortly before 11:30 p.m., metropolitan time, from the Guyanese space center in Kourou, was postponed due to "abnormal behavior of a sensor" on the machine. The Arianespace company has announced a new launch attempt "no earlier than Saturday August 1". 

The firing of the European heavy launcher Ariane 5 was postponed on Friday shortly before 6.30 p.m. in Guyana (shortly before 11.30 p.m. on Friday in Paris) after a stop to the final countdown 1 minute and 41 seconds before the end of the chronology. The stop of the count occurred "2mn 14 seconds" before the scheduled time for takeoff, indicated, for its part, a press release from Arianespace. Ariane 5's firing window was open between 6:30 p.m. and 7:16 p.m. local time (between 11:30 p.m. Friday and 12:16 a.m. Saturday in Paris) but shortly after 7:00 p.m. in Kourou, the director of operations (DDO) indicated that the shooting was postponed.

"Abnormal behavior" of a sensor

"The final sequence of operations for the preparation of Ariane Flight n ° 253 (VA253) was interrupted (...) following an abnormal behavior of a sensor in the liquid hydrogen tank of the main cryogenic stage. are underway, "Arianespace said in a statement.

For its third launch of the year, Ariane 5 was to take off from the Guyanese space center in Kourou before putting into orbit two telecommunications satellites Galaxy 30 from Intelsat and BSAT-4b designed and built for Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT) , satellite broadcasting operator in Japan as well as a life extension vehicle (Mission Extension Vehicle-2 or MEV-2).

The Galaxy 30 / MEV-2 is a program of Northrop Grumman Corporation combining two superimposed satellites: the Galaxy 30 from Intelsat and the MEV-2 for SpaceLogistics LLC, a satellite maintenance vehicle that will dock first to Intelsat 10- 02 (IS-10-02).

A new attempt on Saturday

The Galaxy 30 (G-30) satellite is to be the first replacement satellite in Intelsat's North American Galaxy fleet.

The MEV-2 satellite must have the Intelsat 10-02 satellite as its first customer.

If the mission is successful, the MEV-2 satellite, once docked, must control the orbit of the client satellite using its own thrusters.

Arianespace has announced a new launch attempt "no earlier than (...) Saturday August 1 at 6.30 p.m. Kourou time, 9.30 p.m. universal time, 11.30 p.m. in Paris".