"Right out of the chute, we announced awards from returning customers and had a fantastically successful Atlas V launch with NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto - and there are 11 months to go in 2006," said Mark Albrecht, ILS president.

A joint venture of Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Moscow, ILS markets and manages satellite launch missions on the American Atlas and Russian Proton vehicles.

ILS could launch as many as nine satellites this year, Albrecht said, noting that only three weeks remain before the next ILS mission. That will be a Proton Breeze M launch for EADS Astrium with the ARABSAT 4A satellite, scheduled for Feb. 28/March 1.

The first ILS mission was the New Horizons launch on Jan. 19, using the top-of-the-line Lockheed Martin Atlas V-551 configuration with 2.5 million pounds of thrust.

The three Proton awards announced are the following:

+ Telesat will launch its Nimiq 4 satellite in 2008, for its fifth flight with ILS.

+ JSAT became the first Japanese operator to use a Russian vehicle when it scheduled its JCSAT-11 satellite on Proton for 2007. JSAT launched three previous satellites on Atlas vehicles.

+ Sirius Satellite Radio has purchased a spot for spacecraft launch prior to December 2010. Its three in-orbit satellites were all launched by Proton in 2000.

Related Links
International Launch Services

Add to Delicious