BAIKONUR. Jan 24 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - The launch of AMS- 9, a U.S. telecommunications satellite, initially slated for early February this year, has been postponed to March 15.
In a report to Interfax, a source at the cosmodrome quotes Baikonur's General Machine-Building Design Center as saying "the launch was put off because its contractor - Americom - has not chosen the accelerating unit for the rocket booster yet."
The AMS-9 is planned to be boosted by a Proton-K rocket. The source recalled that the Breeze-M, a new accelerating unit (designed by the Khrunichev Space Corporation), was chosen originally.
However, specialists now believe that the new accelerator has not been fitted well enough. At the same time, Americom also lacks trust in the DM-3 unit (designed by Russia's Energia Corporation) since it was this accelerator that, in putting the European communication satellite Astra-1K into projected orbit on November 26, 2002, malfunctioned and caused the subsequent loss of the spacecraft.
The source recalled that the AMS-9 launch is to be the first commercial lift of a Proton-K from the machine-building center's 200th pad of the cosmodrome.
At the end of last year, specialists from the Russian- American joint venture International Launch Services preliminary assessed how ready the land-based technological equipment of the Proton-K was at the 200th pad.
The French company Alcatel manufactured the AMS-9 for Americom.