Artemis Telecommunications Satellite

Artemis is a geostationary earth orbit satellite (GEOS) for telecommunications, built for and owned by ESA. The Artemis satellite operates at the 21.5E orbital position. The mission was planned for many years, with launch initially intended for 1995 and slipping; it was intended for launch on Ariane 5 but at one point there were suggestions that a Japanese H-II rocket might be used. Launched by an Ariane 5 rocket on 12 July 2001, it originally reached an orbit much lower than planned (590 km x 17487 km). It was remotely reconfigured to reach its intended station by means of a novel procedure. First, over the course of about a week, most of its chemical fuel was used to put it in a 31,000 km circular orbit (by raising first the apogee then the perigee, going via a 590 km x 31000 km orbit). Then, its electric-ion motor — originally intended for station keeping and for firing a few minutes at a time — was instead kept running for most of 18 months, pushing the spacecraft into an outward spiral trajectory. It gained altitude at the rate of about 15 km per day, until it reached the intended geostationary orbit. [Artemis (satellite). Wikipedia]