WASHINGTON, February 15 (Itar-Tass) – The International Launch Services said on Thursday Russia’s carrier rocket Proton will take the telecommunication satellite SatMex-8 into orbit from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 27.
The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center owns a majority stake in the ILS.
Mexico’s SatMex-8 weighing 5.6 tonnes is designed to provide digital television and radio broadcasting services, telephony and broadband Internet access in western hemisphere. Its life cycle is 15 years.
The Satmex 8 launch, previously planned for December 28, 2012, was postponed due to an anomaly experienced by the Proton Breeze M launch vehicle, when it was delivering Russia’s geostationary communications satellite Yamal-402 on December 8, 2012.
The Russian-U.S. joint venture ILS is headquartered in Reston, VA, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
International Launch Services has exclusive rights to market Proton launch services for commercial and civil satellite programs world-wide.