Ariane 5 rockets puts Africa's first satellite into space

An Ariane 5 rocket blasted off here on Friday to put into orbit the first African telecommunications satellite as well as another made by a US-Japanese joint venture, Arianespace said.

The rocket, the 36th launch of an Ariane 5 and the sixth this year, lifted off at 2142 GMT and successfully placed the satellites for the pan-African operator RascomStar-QAF and US-Japanese Horizons 2 Satellite LLC.

The pan-African satellite, weighing 3.2 tonnes, is the first from the continent to be put into space. Several African dignitaries witnessed the launch but Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who was expected, was a no show.

The Horizons-2 satellite, weighing 2.3 tonnes, was manufactured by Satellite LLC, a joint venture between Intelsat of the US and Japanese firm JSAT.