Mexico City, Mexico – On Wednesday, the French company Arianespace successfully fired Mexico’s Bicentenario satellite into orbit, the first in the Mexsat system. The images were broadcast live by the Mexican government.

The satellite was launched into space from the Kourou space center in French Guiana, South America at 6:50 pm.

The Bicentenario satellite will be maneuvered into a stationary orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth and will be used to handle civilian transmissions by the Mexican government.

The communications satellite was manufactured by the US firm Orbital Sciences Corporation and weighs 2.9 tons. It is projected to have a useful life in orbit of 22 years and will be controlled by Mexican technicians at the Iztapalapa control center in Mexico City and from Hermosillo, the capital of the northern state of Sonora.

President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday said that the satellite, the first of three comprising the Mexsat system, is the first the country has placed in orbit since 1994, and he called it "the most important communications project in the history of Mexico.