Tim Furniss/LONDON
Khrunichev's Proton K/DM booster had its seventh commercial launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 3 December. The Russian company says that it hopes to earn $850 million from its Proton satellite launcher business, covering 22 flights in the five years between 1996 and 2000. The launch mirrors activity across the world as Chinese, European and US boosters were also used to place satellites into orbit in early December.
The Baikonur launch was the fourth Proton commercial flight for ILS International Launch Services, the joint venture operated with Energia and Lockheed Martin. The latest launch carried the Hughes HS-601 Astra 1G satellite into orbit for the Luxembourg-based Societe Européenne des Satellites.
The three earlier Proton commercial launches were operated solely by Khrunichev. These carried an Inmarsat 3 and two sets of seven Iridium craft for Motorola. Fifteen more commercial launches are manifested until 2000.
Khrunichev says that it will launch up to nine commercial Proton missions for ILS in 1998. Its programme, including national launches, is filled until 2002. Proton production will rise to allow about 16 commercial and national launches a year by 2001.
Lockheed Martin has invested in new Proton support equipment at Baikonur, including a new assembly and test building. ILS says that, together with its Proton commitments, it has a backlog of 45 launches to 2000, worth $3.5 billion. This compares with Arianespace's backlog of 40 satellites worth about $3 billion.
The ILS Atlas schedule in 1998 will include eight launches from Canaveral and the first from Vandenberg AFB, California, carrying the first NASA Earth Observing System polar platform.
The Proton Astra 1G launch took place just 7min after the flight of Arianespace's V103/Ariane 44P, carrying another HS-601 satellite, the JCSAT 5, for Japan from the Guiana Space Centre, in Kourou, French Guiana. Arianespace is planning to launch the V104/42L carrying the Space Systems/Loral Intelsat 804 satellite on 23 December, which will break the 20 day record for the shortest time between Ariane launches.
The V103 also carried Germany's Solar-wind observation satellite, the Equator S. This 230kg, 1.26m-high satellite from the Max Planck Institute is being used to make plasma, magnetic and electrical field measurements in a 500 x 63,700km orbit, for the International Solar Terrestrial Physics programme.
A third HS-601 communications satellite was launched within five days on 8 December when an ILS Atlas 2AS lifted off from Cape Canaveral, in Florida, carrying the Galaxy VIII-i for Panamsat's DirecTV service.
The frenetic launch activity in early December continued with the launch of a Chinese Long March 2C/SD booster from Taiyuan, carrying two operational Iridium communications satellites for Motorola. Ten further launches of pairs of Iridiums will follow, on Chinese Long March 2C vehicles.
Forty-one Iridiums are now in orbit. Motorola will declare the system operational when 66 satellites are providing services from low-Earth orbit. On 9 December, Russia launched an electronic-intelligence ocean-reconnaissance satellite, the Cosmos 2347, on a Tsyklon from Baikonur.
Source: Flight International
