On December 24, 1979, the member states of the European Space Agency (ESA), for the first time,  launched their own rocket into space – the foundation stone of the extraordinary success story of the Ariane launcher system.

While ESA celebrates this anniversary, an Ariane 5 GS launcher, last December 18,  lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on a journey to place the French military reconnaissance satellite Helios-2B into Sun-synchronous polar orbit. Flight V193 was the seventh Ariane 5 launch of 2009 and used the last of the GS variant of the launcher.

The satellite was accurately injected into its target orbit about 59 minutes later.
The launcher’s main engine was shut down at 9 min 32 sec; six seconds later, the main cryogenic stage separated from the upper stage and its payload.
At 59 min 19 sec after main engine ignition, Helios-2B separated from the upper stage.
This was the 49th launch of an Ariane 5 and the 35th successful launch in a row.

The Ariane 5 launcher is a key to the development of a common European security and defense policy, in which the space segment plays a pivotal role. HELIOS 2B was the 33rd  military payload to be lofted by the European launcher. Its task is mainly in the field of optical observation.
HELIOS 2B is an element of the second-generation spaceborne observation system for security and defense applications, conducted by France in conjunction with Belgium, Greece, Italy and Spain.

Sources: ESA, Arianespace.