spacetoday.net: Proton returns to flight with successful Intelsat launch

Posted: Mon, Oct 15, 2012, 7:22 AM ET (1122 GMT)
Proton launch of Intelsat 23 (ILS)

Two months after a launch failure, the Proton rocket returned to flight Sunday with the successful launch of a communications satellite for Intelsat. The Proton M rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 4:37 am EDT (0837 GMT, 2:37 pm local time) Sunday carrying the Intelsat 23 satellite. The rocket's Breeze M upper stage released the satellite into a near-geosynchronous orbit nine and a half hours later. Intelsat 23, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, weighed 2,700 kilograms at launch and carries a payload of C and Ku-band transponders. Intelsat will use the spacecraft to replace the aging Intelsat 707 spacecraft at 53 degrees west in GEO. The launch was the first for the Proton since the August 6 failure of a Russian government Proton launch carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites; a problem with the Breeze M upper stage placed the satellites into the wrong orbits.