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Ariane 4 was an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and manufactured and marketed by its subsidiary Arianespace.

The development programme began in 1983 and the first successful launch was on 15 June 1988. The system became the basis for a European satellite launching programme which conduceted 113 successful missions. Ariane 4 provided a payload increase from 1700 kg from Ariane 3, with a maximum payload capacity of 4946 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

The rocket was used in a number of variants - it could be fitted with two or four additional solid or liquid fuelled booster rockets. The rocket included a satellite payload carrier system called Spelda (Structure Porteuse Externe pour Lancements Doubles Ariane, French for 'External carrying structure for Ariane double launches') for launching more than one satellite at a time.

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Spaceflight news

• January 16, 2010 - A Long March 3C launches Compass-G1, a Chinese navigation satellite which will become part of the Compass navigation system.
• June 13, 2009 - NASA cancels launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour because of a hydrogen fuel leak

Selected biography

Portal:Spaceflight/Selected biography/March 2010

Robert Donald Cabana

Robert Donald Cabana (Colonel, USMC, Ret.) is the director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, a former astronaut, and a veteran of four Space Shuttle flights. He is also a former Naval Flight Officer in the United States Marine Corps. He has logged over 7,000 hours in 34 different kinds of aircraft.

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Did you know...

Portal:Spaceflight/Did you know/March 2010

New Horizons on the launchpad

New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission that was launched on January 19, 2006 and is currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, and Hydra. NASA may also approve flybys of one or more other Kuiper Belt Objects. In addition to the scientific equipment, there are several cultural artifacts travelling with the spacecraft. These include a collection of 434,738 names stored on a compact disc, a piece of Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne, and an American flag, along with other mementos. One of the trim weights on the spacecraft is a Florida state quarter, and principal investigator Alan Stern has also confirmed that some of the ashes of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh are aboard the spacecraft.

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On This Day

21 March

• 1963 - A Vostok-2 rocket launches the Kosmos 13 satellite.
• 1964 - A Molniya-M fails to launch an unknown satellite.
• 1965 - An Atlas-Agena launches the Ranger 9 spacecraft.
• 1966 - A Voskhod rocket launches the Kosmos-113 satellite.
• 1967 - A Kosmos-2I launches the Kosmos 149 satellite.
• 1968 - A Voskhod rocket launches the Kosmos 208 satellite.
• 1971 - A Titan 33B launches the OPS 4788 satellite.
• 1975 - A Soyuz-U launches the Kosmos 720 satellite.
• 1979 - A Kosmos-3M launches the Kosmos 1089 satellite.
• 1984 - A Soyuz-U launches the Kosmos 1545 satellite.
• 1985 - A Kosmos-3M launches the Kosmos-1635/1642 satellite.
• 1986 - A Tsyklon-2 launches the Kosmos 1736 satellite.
• 1996 - A PSLV launches the IRS-P3 satellite.
• 1999 - A Proton-K launches the Asiasat 3S satellite.
• 2000 - An Ariane 5 launches the Asiastar and Insat 3B satellites.
• 2002 - A Soyuz-U launches the Progress M1-8 spacecraft to resupply the ISS.
• 2007 - The second Falcon 1 rocket fails to launch a demonstration spacecraft.

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