Russian's Proton-M carrier rocket with a European Astra-2G telecommunications satellite is preparing for its 400th launch on
November 28, a spokesman for the Khrunichev research and production
space centre said on Monday.
The carrier rocket has been installed on the launch pad at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
Friday’s launch will be also Proton’s seventh this year, spokesman
Alexander Shmygov said.“After the service tower was moved to the rocket
and the communications were connected, the specialists of the Khrunichev
centre and Roscosmos enterprises started works in line with the first
day schedule,” he said.
The contract on using Proton-M for the launch of Astra-2G was signed with the International Launch Services Inc.
The controlling stake in the ILS belongs to the Khrunichev centre,
which is a developer and manufacturer of Proton-M and the upper stage
Briz-M.Proton is used for both commercial and Russian government space
launches.
The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965.
0 Comments