The picture-perfect mission provided a needed, if symbolic, lift to the space launch business, which has languished of late amid a prolonged slump in the global telecommunications industry. Officials with Lockheed Martin and International Launch Services, which markets Atlas rockets commercially, said prior to the launch that a success would help sell the vehicle.

"The best sales event is a successful launch," John Karas, vice president and deputy director of Atlas programs with Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, said Aug. 20.

Mark Albrecht, president of International Launch Services, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Russia, said at a pre-launch press conference that the Atlas 5 is a new capability that, combined with the Russian Proton rocket, "will give us a competitive edge in the marketplace." International Launch Services also markets the Khrunichev-built Proton.

The launch also marks a significant milestone for the Air Force, which underwrote $530 million of the Atlas 5's roughly $1.6 billion development cost. The Atlas 5 is the first of two Air Force EELV rockets to fly, the other being Boeing Co.'s Delta 4, which is slated to debut in October, also with a commercial payload.

The Atlas 5 and Delta 4 families will replace the existing U.S. fleet of medium-sized to large launchers in the next several years, and are expected to loft the vast majority of U.S. government payloads for the foreseeable future.

In an interview Aug. 20, Air Force Col. Sue Mashiko, the service's EELV systems program director, said a successful Atlas 5 launch would mean "I have half of my development program complete and it means I have a proven vehicle."

The first EELV mission for the Air Force is slated for December, when a Delta 4 rocket is slated to loft a military communications satellite. The Atlas 5's first military mission is not scheduled to take place until 2005.

The Air Force has asked both Lockheed Martin and Boeing to be prepared to back up each other's vehicle, meaning if there is a problem with the Delta 4 in the coming months the Atlas 5 could wind up conducting the first military EELV mission. Mashiko would not specify the circumstances under which the Air Force would switch vehicles, saying it will depend on a variety of factors and that the decision ultimately will be up to Air Force Space Command, which will operate the satellite.

The Hot Bird 6 satellite, meanwhile, will expand Eutelsat's television and radio broadcasting capabilities in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Built by Alcatel Space of Paris, the Spacebus 3000 series platform carries 28 Ku-band transponders and four Ka-band transponders, and will operate in Eutelsat's orbital slot above the equator at 13 degrees east longitude.

Relatively new in the commercial world, Ka-band satellite transponders enable transmissions using less bandwidth and smaller-diameter ground antennas than is possible with Ku-band payloads, said Pierre de Bayser, Alcatel's vice president of marketing and sales. Hot Bird 6 is Eutelsat's first to carry Ka-band transponders, said Vanessa O'Connor, a spokeswoman for Eutelsat.

Like its predecessor, Hot Bird 5, Hot Bird 6 has an onboard processing, or multiplexing, capability, giving broadcast customers the option of transmitting programming directly to the satellite rather than through specialized hub stations, according to Volker Steiner, Eutelsat commercial director. Ka-band customers will be able to do this with their smaller antennas, O'Connor said.

Patricia Grace Smith, associated administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration hailed the successful mission.

"The successfully launch tonight of the Atlas 5 vehicle is a major step forward for the U.S. commercial space transportation industry it also is an important development maintaining assured access to space for our national security requirements and economic interests," Smith said.