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The Storable Propellant Upper Stage (EPS) of the eleventh Ariane 5G is hosted on top of the partly stacked vehicle in the Launcher Integration Building (BIL) of the Ariane Launch Complex no.3 (ELA-3) of the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's space port.
On March 1st, 2002, this first Ariane 5 flight toward a Sun-synchronous polar orbit (V145) successfully lofted ESA's Envisat polar platform.
The largest and most sophisticated spacecraft ever built in Europe, the 8,111-kg Envisat is dedicated to environmental monitoring and carries 10 main instruments to probe the Earth's atmosphere, lands and oceans.
This mission was the first Ariane 5 flight to feature the 17-m long fairing required to house the 10-m-tall payload.
The generic version of the Ariane 5 family of launchers, the Ariane 5G can lift up to 6.8 metric tons of payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).