Shrouded in a nose cone atop the 15-story Atlas 2AS, the Superbird-6 spacecraft roared upward from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 8:45 p.m. EDT (0045 GMT) in a flawless launch from complex 36A orchestrated by International Launch Services (ILS). Launch officials said weather conditions were perfect right up until liftoff.

"I feel very confident about this mission's success," said Daisuke Yoshioka, Superbird-6 mission director for the satellite's owner, Tokyo, Japan-based Space Communications Corporation (SCC).

Boeing Satellite Systems built Superbird-6 for SCC, which is meant as a successor to 12-year-old Superbird A already in orbit.

Two minutes into the launch, the Lockheed Martin-built Atlas 2AS jettisoned its ground-lit and air-lit solid rocket boosters. A minute later, the protective nose cone fell away from Superbird-6, exposing it to space. The spacecraft used its attached Centaur booster to make two successive navigational burns before finally separating on its own 30 minutes after launch.

Renamed Superbird A2 after separation, the three-ton satellite used its own maneuvering jets to slip into a 158-degree orbit over the Pacific Ocean. It sports 23 Ku-band transponders and four Ka-band transponders to serve the telecommunication needs over a broad swath of the region, including Japan, Hawaii and Australia. Superbird A2 also carries a steerable Ka-band beam to improve international communication services and is expected to provide high-definition television, VSAT and DirecPC to customers throughout its 13-year mission lifetime.

Superbird A2's orbital delivery was the second ILS launch for SCC aboard an Atlas rocket. It was the fourth ILS launch in four months and the 28^th successful performance of the Atlas 2AS launch vehicle.