[3/2/07] Arianespace will launch the Spaceway-3 communications satellite for Hughes Network Systems LLC, the companies announced March 1. An August liftoff is scheduled aboard an Ariane 5 launch from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana.

The satellite had been scheduled to be lofted into orbit by Sea Launch before the end of July, but Hughes switched vehicles following that launch provider’s Jan. 30 failure that destroyed the SES New Skies’ NSS-8 satellite. That was the first of six Sea Launch missions scheduled for 2007: Besides Hughes, Sea Launch’s s other customers were Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co., DirecTV, PanAmSat Corp. and EchoStar Communications Corp.

Hughes will operate the Ka-band satellite, built by Boeing Satellites Systems Inc., as part of its new broadband satellite network to provide multimedia services throughout North America.

Spaceway-3 marks a second customer’s switching from Sea Launch to Arianespace. SES Americom plans to launch its AMC-21 satellite in the 2008 second quarter aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. The satellite previously had been scheduled to be placed into orbit by Sea Launch’s planned Land Launch rocket.