MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. The Proton-M rocket carrying two Ekspress-AMU3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecom satellites, which is expected to be launched on December 13, has been installed on a launchpad at the Baikonur spaceport, Russia’s Roscosmos state space agency said on Twitter on Saturday.
"The Proton-M rocket is installed on the launchpad No. 39 of Site 200 and brought into a vertical position," the tweet reads.
Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin announced earlier that the launch had been rescheduled from December 6 to December 12 due to the need to refine the rocket’s booster. Roscosmos specified later that experts from the Khrunichev Center had resolved an issue with the Briz-M booster.
However, an issue was detected in the booster on Friday and the launch was moved to a backup date, December 13.
The Ekspress-AMU3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecom satellites, made by the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company and the European company Thales Alenia Space Italia, will be put into orbit for the Russian Satellite Communications Company.