On this day: 25 July 2013, Alphasat, the largest European telecommunications satellite ever built, was launched on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. As the biggest public–private space project ever made in Europe, Alphasat was primarily designed to expand telecommunications provider Inmarsat’s existing global mobile network. ESA partnered with Inmarsat for the commissioning of Alphasat, which was engineered and built by Astrium. Read more here: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/TeleCommunications_Integrated_Applications/Alphasat/Overview
(pic: ESA/CNES/Arianespace).
