WASHINGTON, August 04, 23:08 /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian-American joint venture International Launch Services (ILS), which holds exclusive rights to Proton rocket marketing and commercial operation, on Monday announced its decision to cut the number of launches and lay off a quarter of its personnel.

It said the decision was not in any way connected with the company’s financial status. ILS President Phil Slack said none of the dismissals was related to performance indicators.

He said the present workforce was intended for 7-8 launches a year, but now the company is planning make no more than 3-4, which will require about a quarter of the personnel to be laid off.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., International Launch Services is a complete launch service organisation comprised of about 65 professionals. It provides sales, marketing, mission management, launch operations, legal, licensing, and technical translation services. Founded in 1995, ILS is a subsidiary of Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre and has launched more than 80 commercial Proton rockets. Khrunichev has launched over 390 Proton rockets.

ILS is a world leader in providing launch services for global satellite operators. It has exclusive rights to market Proton launch services for commercial and civil satellite programmes world-wide.