Baku, Azerbaijan, April 28
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:
Carrier rocket Proton-M delivered Kazakh KazSat -3 and Russian Luch - 5B satellites to intermediate orbit, Russian Space Agency's representative told RIA Novosti.
Briz-M booster will deliver the satellites to the target orbit.
"Briz -M upper stage with two satellites separated from the Proton-M carrier rocket. Kazakh communications satellite KazSat -3 is scheduled to be on the target orbit today at 17.17 Moscow time, and the Russian relay satellite Luch will separate from the booster later - at 17.57 Moscow time," the source said.
The both satellites were launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
KazSat-3 satellite is designed to provide communications, television and high speed Internet access in Kazakhstan and neighboring countries.
Kazakhstan was the first post-Soviet country (excluding Russia) which launched its own space satellite. KazSat was launched in June 2006. The second Kazakh space satellite was launched in July 2011. KazSat-2 operates in the normal mode, provides services to 11 Kazakhstan operators and gets over $2 billion tenge (about $11 millions) for its services. Over 63 percent of its capacity has been already leased.