MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The launch of the U.S. Telstar-14R telecommunications satellite atop the Proton-M carrier rocket is due to occur at 11:15 p.m. Moscow time on Friday.
"The launch of the Proton-M space rocket with the Briz-M upper stage and U.S. Telstar-14R satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome will be broadcast live on the website of the Center for Ground-Based Space Infrastructure (TsENKI) in the Broadcasts section," the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) told Interfax.
The broadcast will start almost two hours before the liftoff and will end half an hour after it, the source said.
The forthcoming launch of the carrier rocket will be the first liftoff of this rocket this year and the 364th in its flight history, as well as the eighth Russian launch since the start of the year, the Khrunichev Space Center (the developer and maker of both Proton and Briz-M) said.
The Telstar 14R satellite will cover Brazil, the continental part of the United States, the southern part of South America, and northern and central parts of the Atlantic Ocean.
The satellite is expected to be operational for at least 15 years. After the launch the satellite will be tested before being put into service in the second half of 2011.