Russia launched late on Monday a Proton-M rocket carrying two telecommunications satellites from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said.
The Proton rocket with Briz-M booster lifted off at 11.31 p.m. Moscow time [19:31 GMT]. This is the sixth Proton launch this year and the 378th since first launch in 1965.
“The separation of the Telkom-3 satellite from Briz-M is scheduled for 08.44 a.m. Moscow time [04:44 GMT, while the Express-MD2 is expected to separate at 09.14 Moscow time [05:14 GMT],” Roscosmos said.
Telkom-3 satellite has been built by Russia’s Reshetnev space company with its communication equipment made by Thales Alenia Space. It has a capacity of 42 C- and Ku-band active transponders to provide telecoms services for Indonesian customers.
This is the first time Indonesia has bought a satellite from Russia.
The Express MD2 is a small communication satellite, designed and manufactured by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center for the Russian Satellite Communications Company(RSCC).
The satellite features 8 C-band transponders and 1 L-band transponder to relay, round-the-clock, data streams to multiple users within the Russian Satellite Communications and Broadcasting System.
