Arianespace, the European Space Agency and the French Space Agency have jointly named an investigation board to determine the cause of the July 12, 2001, launch failure in which an Ariane 5 rocket fell short of delivering the Artemis and Bsat 2B satellites to their respective orbits. An unknown problem with the Ariane 5's upper stage caused the release of the two satellites onboard at too low an orbit: 17,528 km apogee, 592 km perigee and 2.9° inclination, instead of the targeted orbit of 35, 853 km apogee, 858 km perigee and 2° inclination.
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