Antonov Airlines air-lifts communication satellite
Antonov Airlines cooperated with Bollore Logistics Space recently to transport a civil telecommunications satellite on one of its Antonov AN-124-100-150 aircraft. It flew the unit from Toulouse (France) to the ‘Nasa Shuttle Landing Facility’ in Titusville FL (USA), where it will be launched by the US aerospace company SpaceX.
The cargo weighed 50 t, including a special container 14.69 m long, 5.45 m wide, and 4.22 m high, designed by Airbus Defence and Space specifically to safely move this type of satellites to a launch centre.
Sergii Bilozerov, commercial executive, Antonov Airlines, pointed out that “an external crane, a crane and winch on board the 124, and special loading equipment designed and manufactured by Antonov’s in-house engineers, were used to load and unload the CTH04 container.” (cj)