MOSCOW. June 4 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian launch vehicle Proton-M with the Briz-M upper stage and Saudi satellite Arabsat 5B (Badr-5) has been launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan), Alexander Bobrenev, spokesman for the Khrunichev State Space Scientific Production Center, told Interfax-AVN.
The satellite was launched under the usual scheme using the standard suborbital trajectory and impact areas for jettisonable parts of the carrier rocket, the official said.
Satellite Аrabsat 5B (Badr-5) is a broadcasting satellite made by EADS Astrium for the Аrabsat, an Arab satellite communications company. The satellite will be mounted on the geostationary orbit east of 26 degrees longitude along with broadcasting satellites Badr-4 and Badr-6, launched in 2006 and 2008, respectively. The new satellite will cover the territory of the Middle East and North Africa. The estimated service life of the satellite is 15 years. Its weight is 5,420 kilograms.
Arabsat 5B (Badr-5) was created on the basis of EADS Astrium's Eurostar E3000 satellite platform. The satellite is fitted with 56 active Ku-band and Ka-band transponders.
This is the third time that the Proton rocket was used to launch Arabsat's payload. One of the previous launches failed. The first satellite launched on February 28, 2006, was delivered to the wrong orbit due to an unexpected engine firing of the Briz-M upper stage. During the launch of another Arabasat's satellite on November 8, 2006, everything went as planned.
This is the 12th launch of the Proton rocket with a satellite on EADS Astrium's Eurostart platform.