Moscow, September 6 (AVN) - Two launches of the Proton booster rocket will happen by the end of this year under the auspices of the Russian-US International Launch Service (ILS) joint venture, a spokesman for the Khrunichev space research and production centre said on Thursday.
The boosters will put in orbit two satellites made by the Space Systems Loral Direct company. TV29 will lift off on October 19 and Intelsat 9 on November 26, the spokesman told the Military News Agency.
Proton was designed over 30 years ago, but it is still among the basic and most reliable rockets on the global space launches market. Over 20 boosters have been launched for commerial purposes since 1996. They put over 40 foreign satellites in geostationary and circumterrestial orbits.
In accordance with a Russian government regulation all launches of the booster rocket are controlled by the ILS, which is maintained by Russia's Khrunichev centre and US Lockheed Martin corporation.
According to Khrunichev Director General Alexander Medvedev, the joint venture established in 1993 has proven its survivability and confirmed reliability of partnership relations and mutual profitability of co-operation between big Russian and US aerospace companies.