spacetoday.net: Proton M launches Nimiq 2

Updated: Mon, Dec 30, 2002, 8:40 AM ET (1340 GMT)
Originally Posted: Sun, Dec 29, 2002, 7:55 PM ET (0055 GMT)
Proton M/Nimiq 2 launch illustration (ILS)

A Proton M booster, making its first commercial flight, launched a Canadian communications satellite Sunday evening. The Proton M lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:17 pm EST (2317 GMT) on a mission to place the Nimiq 2 communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit. The three-stage Proton and its Breeze M upper stage placed the spacecraft into a temporary low Earth parking orbit approximately 20 minutes after launch; three more Breeze M burns will place the spacecraft into its final orbit before spacecraft separation nearly seven hours after launch. The launch is the first commercial flight for the Proton M, a modernized version of the workhorse Proton booster; the Proton M made its first flight in April 2001 when it launched a domestic Russian communications satellite. International Launch Services (ILS), the company that markets the Proton and Atlas commercially, plans to transition to the Proton M in the near future, a decision accelerated by the launch failure of a Proton K and its Block DM upper stage last month. The launch was the 65th and, barring any unscheduled launches in the next two days, last of 2002. That number is slightly higher than the 59 orbital launches in 2001, the lowest number since the early 1960s.