Phase 3D Gets Its First Taste of Flight

After a circuitous land and air journey, AMSAT's Phase 3D satellite now is
at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The next-generation
Amateur Radio satellite is expected to be launched from Kourou later this
year. Meanwhile, it will be stored there while it awaits the next-available
Ariane 5 launch that all hope will put it successfully into Earth orbit.

After obtaining the necessary governmental shipping clearances and being
trucked from the Phase 3D Integration Lab in Orlando, Florida, to Atlanta,
Georgia, Phase 3D took off in the cargo hold of an Air France 767 January
17. To get to the launch site--near the equator on the Atlantic Coast of
South America--Phase 3D first stopped over briefly in Paris. From there, it
was airlifted successfully to French Guiana's capital city, Cayenne, then
transported overland to Kourou. 

Phase 3D Operations Manager Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, says the tab for the trip
ran about $20,000. The reason for the roundabout trek from Orlando to
Kourou, he explained, was the lack of direct flights to French Guiana by
planes large enough to accommodate the P3D payloads.

AMSAT News Service reported this week that Phase 3D will be stored in its
container, housed in an air-conditioned integration building at the launch
complex until launch preparations commence.

A launch contract accepting Phase 3D as a payload for the first suitable
Ariane 5 launch vehicle was signed last October. Phase 3D is expected to be
among the first secondary payloads to hitchhike aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
There's no word on a specific date for P3D to go into space. Given the
success of the last Ariane 5 launch, Guelzow says the chances are "pretty
good" for an early launch opportunity, but he has ruled out any chance of a
launch aboard Ariane 505 in mid-March. "Arianespace is doing its best to
accommodate us soon after AR505 [Ariane 505]," Guelzow said in a posting on
the AMSAT-NA Web site (http://www.amsat.org/). "Waiting is all what we can
do now."

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