Super-rocket's next critical test
View at BBC NEWS
Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket is set to blast off on Saturday with its largest payload yet.
It carries two telecommunications satellites with a combined weight of more than nine tonnes.
The 2344 GMT launch from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana will be the fourth flight this year of an Ariane 5.
But the beefed-up heavy-lift version of the vehicle - known as the Ariane 5-ECA - has flown successfully only once before, in February 2005.
Its maiden flight in 2002 ended in disaster, when the rocket had to be destroyed as it veered off course over the Atlantic Ocean.
Europe's heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket is set to blast off on Saturday with its largest payload yet.It carries two telecommunications satellites with a combined weight of more than nine tonnes.
The 2344 GMT launch from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana will be the fourth flight this year of an Ariane 5.
But the beefed-up heavy-lift version of the vehicle - known as the Ariane 5-ECA - has flown successfully only once before, in February 2005.
Its maiden flight in 2002 ended in disaster, when the rocket had to be destroyed as it veered off course over the Atlantic Ocean.
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