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Arianespace Postpones Rosetta Mission One Day Due To Weather

By Staff Writer | February 26, 2004

      Arianespace‘s Flight 158 scheduled for today was postponed until Friday due to “wind conditions at altitude” affecting the Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission is to carry Europe’s Rosetta comet-intercept spacecraft aboard an Ariane 5G launch vehicle. Arianespace Chief Executive Officer Jean-Yves Le Gall announced the hold approximately 20 minutes before today’s early morning scheduled lift-off at a precise time, rather than during the more traditional launch window for telecommunication satellite payloads.

      Due to the unique mission profile with Rosetta, the scheduled launch time is 49 seconds past 2:36 a.m. EDT and 4:36 a.m. local time at the Spaceport. Le Gall said the next launch opportunity is tomorrow morning at the same time. The Rosetta spacecraft payload would be placed on an Earth escape trajectory to rendezvous in 2014 with Comet Churyumov- Gerasimenko.