"We're still on target for April 20," Fran Slimmer, a spokeswoman for International Launch Systems, the joint Russian-American effort to market commercial lifting bodies, told SpaceDaily.com.

Technicians began assembling the launch package last Wednesday at the Launch Complex 41 Vertical Integration Facility. They raised the 100-foot-long Atlas first stage onto its mobile launch platform. Slimmer said the payload, an ASTRA 1KR direct-broadcast satellite intended to service European markets, is expected to arrive at Cape Canaveral this week.

Since its inaugural flight on Aug. 21, 2002, the Atlas V has flown successfully seven times – five times commercially and twice on NASA missions.

The rocket uses a booster stage powered by the RD-180 – for "raketny dvigatel," or "rocket engine" in Russian - system that burns a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen. The booster can accommodate between one and five strap-on solid rocket boosters.

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