MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. The Russian Proton-M carrier rocket lifted off with two Ekspress telecoms satellites from the Baikonur spaceport as normal and its Briz-M booster activated its thrusters successfully, State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin announced on Monday.

"Launch normal. Booster’s first activation/switch-off," Rogozin wrote on his Twitter.

The Proton-M rocket with the Ekspress-AMU3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecoms satellites lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 15:07 Moscow time. About nine minutes after the lift-off, the rocket’s head unit comprising the Briz-M booster and the two communications satellites separated from the carrier’s upper stage. The Ekspress-AMU-7 will separate from the booster in 17 hours and 50 minutes and the Ekspress-AMU3 in 18 hours and 7 minutes.

The satellites will be finally orbited with the help of two SPD-100V and one SPD-14OD thrusters.

It will take no more than 56 days to finally orbit the Ekspress-AMU7 satellite and no more than 59 days to put the Ekspress-AMU3 into final orbit.

Ekspress telecoms satellites

The Ekspress-AMU-3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecoms satellites are designed to provide fixed-line and mobile communications, digital television and radio broadcasting, high-speed access to the Internet and data transmission in the C-, Ku-and L-bands on the territory of Russia and CIS countries.

The satellites have been launched to provide communications for the state-run Russian Satellite Communications Company. Roscosmos plans to place the Ekspress-AMU3 satellite into the orbital point of 96.5 degrees of east longitude and the Ekspres-AMU7 into the position of 145 degrees of east longitude.