Anik F2, the Canadian, will provide a high-speed Internet link in North America
An Ariane 5 rocket took off after three days of delays carrying the largest commercial communications satellite in the world.
The launch was successfully carried out at 00:44 GMT on the night between midnight and Sunday (03:44 Israel time), from the Kourou site in French Guiana.
The 6 ton satellite is Canadian owned. It will provide broadband Internet access and other digital services in North America.
The spacecraft has arrays of solar collectors 48 meters wide, as soon as it reaches its docking point in space.
The launch was planned for last Monday, but technical problems caused a three-day delay in the launch. Severe weather conditions and another anomaly caused another delay of two days.
This is the 19th launch of Ariane 5 and the first since March.
The tool is the only one currently offered by Ariane, after all the smaller Ariane 4 missiles have been retired.
However, contracts have already been signed in which Ariane Space will offer launches of Russian Soyuz rockets to its customers. A smaller system for lighter payloads known as the Vega is also currently being developed.
The Ariane 5 is starting to regain market confidence after suffering several mishaps in December 2002, when a heavy version of the missile veered off course and was therefore destroyed four minutes after launch.
Despite the delays and the grounding of Ariane for most of 2003, Ariane continued to be among the five largest in the commercial space launch market.
In May, Ariane and the EDAS-SPACE company signed a contract for the production of 30 Ariane 5 launchers. The value of the deal, 3 billion euros.
