Late on Saturday evening, December 17, Arianespace (News - Alert) successfully launched its second Russian-built Soyuz rocket from its spaceport in French Guiana. The flight successfully put into orbit two dual-purpose imaging satellites in orbit for France and Chile, plus four smaller microsatellites to gather electronic intelligence for the French government.

Flight VS02 lifted off at 9:03 p.m. ET. The mission required four firings of the Soyuz' Fregat upper stage to put the satellites into altitudes ranging from 610 kilometers to 700 kilometers.  First released was France's Pléiades 1 optical imaging satellite, followed by the deployment of all four ELISA electronic intelligence microsatellites.   Chile's SSOT imaging satellite was released last, at three hours and 26 minutes after liftoff.

Built by Astrium, Pléiades 1 will provide military and civilian users 50 centimeter resolution imaging at a coverage swath of 20 kilometers. The satellite is one of two optical imaging satellites France plans to orbit over the next six months, with some of its capabilities used by the French and Italian militaries in exchange for Italian radar satellite imagery. Civilian users will be able to use high-resolution Pléiades imagery to complement 1.5 meter wide-swath imagery from a pair of French SPOT satellites to be launched in 2012 and 2013.

The ELISA micro-satellite cluster is expected to operate for more than three years. Each satellite weighs 120 kilograms each and the constellation will collect radio and radar emissions data, along with the ability to geo-locate those emitters.

Chile's SSOT will provide optical images for both military and civilian users. The satellite weighed 177 kilograms at launch and was based on the same bus as the ELISA satellites. Image resolution is expected to be around 1.45 meters in single color and 5.8 meters in multispectral mode. SSOT was built by Astrium and is a part of a space technology sharing deal between Astrium and the Chilean government.

The launch marks the last flight out of French Guiana this year. Arianespace successfully launched five heavy-lift Ariane 5 rockets carrying nine telecommunications satellites to orbit from the site, plus an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to provide supplies and reboosting capability to the International Space Station (ISS). When you add in this year's two successful Soyuz missions, Arianespace flew a total of seven times from French Guiana in 2011.

Next year, Arianespace will add the Vega rocket to its French Guiana launch portfolio. The first Vega mission is planned for the January-February timeframe. Vega is a four stage launcher designed to deliver up to 1,500 kilograms on missions to a 700 kilometer circular polar orbit and will be the "entry level" capability supported from French Guyana to complement the medium-sized Soyuz and heavy Ariane 5.