Russians restart satellite launches
September 12, 2012
By Chris Forrester
Russia’s Proton rockets will start flying again next month. October 14th is the first commercial flight when International Launch Services (ILS) will use a Proton rocket to loft Intelsat’s IS-23.
The Russian inquiry board which examined the failure on August 6th of a Proton-BrizM craft and the loss of two communications satellites said that an “out of specification” component failed in the rocket’s fuel line. The offending component is being replaced.
It is now expected that there will be two or three more launches this calendar year, allowing ILS to start to catch up on the last two months of delays. ILS has a total of 19 commercial missions in his waiting list for launch.