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Russia to hold this year's first space launch

The Proton-M that will be launched from the historical Baikonur Space Center in central Kazakhstan will take into orbit the Eutelsat 9B telecommunications satellite

© ITAR-TASS/Roscosmos

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. This year's first launch of the Proton-M carrier rocket is to take place at 01:20 Moscow Standard Time on January 30, the press service of the state aerospace corporation Roscosmos said on Friday.

The Proton-M that will be launched from the historical Baikonur Space Center in central Kazakhstan will take into orbit the Eutelsat 9B telecommunications satellite.

After the launch vehicle gets to the parking orbit (9 mins 42 secs after launch), the satellite and the Briz-M booster block will separate from it. In the next phase of the operation to deliver Eutelsat 9B to the designated orbit of 35,000 km above the Earth with the aid of five impulses of the engine unit.

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The total time of delivery of the satellite into the designated orbit will be 9 hrs 12 mins.

An agreement on launching this satellite was signed in October 2015 by International Launch Services, a filial company of the Moscow-based Khrunichev Center, and Eutelsat Communications of France, one of the leading operations of satellite telecommunications.

Over the past fifteen years, the Protons have launched eleven space vehicles commissioned by Eutelsat.

The current satellite will support digital TV transmissions and data connections in Scandinavian and Baltic countries. It was built by Airbus Defense and Space, an aerospace subdivision of Airbus group that is based in Toulouse.

The takeoff weight of the satellite is about 5,262 kilograms.

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