11-06-07 – Satellite Today]  The Skynet 5B and Star One C1 spacecraft have been fitted to their Ariane 5 launch vehicle in advance of a scheduled Nov. 9 mission, Arianespace announced.
    Star One C1 will provide telecommunications, multimedia and high-speed internet Internet services to South America.  Skynet 5B will provide secure military communications for the U.K. Ministry of Defence.  The first Skynet satellite was launched in April, and Skynet 5C is slated for launch in 2008.
    This is the fifth Ariane 5 launched in 2007. The sixth and final launch for 2007 is scheduled for December, and Thales Alenia Space has transferred the Rascom-QAF1 communications satellite to the launch site, the company announced Nov. 5.
    The satellite, which was built as part of a turnkey contract with RascomStar-QAF, will provide telecommunications services in rural parts of Africa as well as domestic and international connections, direct TV broadcast services and Internet access.
    Based on a Spacebus 4000B3 platform, Rascom-QAF1 is equipped with 12 Ku-band transponders and eight C-band transponders.
    The satellite will be launched in December along with the Horizons-2 satellite.