Two Commercial Launches Of Proton Carriers To Be Held At Baikonur In 2019 - Space Center

Two commercial launches of Russia's Proton-M carrier rockets are expected to take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan later this year to bring a total of three satellites into Earth's orbit, a representative of Russian Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center told Sputnik on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2019) Two commercial launches of Russia's Proton-M carrier rockets are expected to take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan later this year to bring a total of three satellites into Earth's orbit, a representative of Russian Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center told Sputnik on Friday.

A source in the space industry had previously told Sputnik that two commercial launches using the Proton-M carrier were expected to take place this spring and at the end of the year first, the telecommunication satellites Eutelsat 5 West B and MEV-1 would go up, and then the Anik G2V.

"As part of the first launch, the European telecommunications spacecraft Eutelsat 5 West B and the US technology satellite MEV-1 are expected to be brought into the orbit; during the second one, the Russian telecommunications device Yamal-601 [is set to be launched]," the representative said.

The representative added that commercial launches of the Proton-M rocket were carried out by the Khrunichev center under contracts with its subsidiary, International Launch Services.

The company conducted a total of 96 commercial launches of the Proton spacecraft between 1996 and 2018.