ILS International Launch Services has won orders from Hughes to launch two more worldwide mobile communications satellites into medium earth orbit on Atlas IIAS and Proton boosters for Inmarsat affiliate ICO. The new orders mean that ILS is to launch six of the satellites - four by Protons and two by Atlas IIAS.
Boeing's Delta III will undertake five ICO launches. The additional Atlas and Proton launches are those lost by the Boeing-led Sea Launch operation, which has one remaining ICO contract. Twelve ICOs are to be launched.
The Sea Launch business was lost following the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit 2 failure last September, which lost 12 Globalstars. The Sea Launch will use an uprated Zenit 2, the Zenit 3SL, which uses a third stage taken from the Russian Proton. ICO does not want to risk launching the satellites on the maiden flight of the booster.
The first Sea Launch flies with a dummy payload for the first time on 26 March.
Source: Flight International