BAIKONUR, Kazakstan - When Russia resumed flying its Proton rocket booster at the Baikonur Cosmodrome last Saturday, it was a momentous occasion in that nation's space history -- as well as for everyone who attended the launch in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan.

Hurtling an Indonesian satellite into orbit, the liftoff marked the first Proton flight from Russia's key spaceport since Kazakstan lifted its ban on all launches of the problem-plagued booster.

"This launch, probably because of the recent Proton failures, was more emotional than the others," said Michelle Lyle, International Launch Services (ILS) vice president for corporate affairs. " A lot of people wanted to see the launch live."

Lyle, who is in charge of ILS guest visits to Baikonur, certainly knew what she was talking about. This time, Clintondale Aviation, a U.S.-based company which operates a number of Russian civil aircraft in Russia (and who signed an agreement with ILS in 1996 regarding the delivery of ILS visitors to the cosmodrome) had to use a bigger aircraft to transport spectators for this highly anticipated launch.

"It is almost like an exhibition of the world space industry elite," joked Clintondale Aviation president Yuri Konovalov as he looked inside the Yak aircrafts passenger cabin. "We have here representatives of ILS, Starsem, ESA, Khrunichev, ACeS, etc."

During the last 40 minutes of flight, the plane was flying over the frozen and desolated steppe -- a brownish expanse covered by white spots, which were in actuality icy ponds and small lakes. Even seconds before touchdown at Yubileinoye runway -- built for Buran, the Russian space shuttle -- there was still a feeling that the plane was landing in the middle of nowhere.

Only after stepping down from the Yak could one sense that this was the middle of an industrial area. Near the runway there was a huge gray building with a glassed balcony used by air traffic controllers -- and formerly for Buran flight operators. Somewhere far on the horizon one could see scattered launch towers and buildings of unknown designation.

All the passengers were picked up on the airfield by two comfortable buses. They traveled on a concrete road that ran through the steppe and was occasionally crossed by railroads, often with empty or wrecked boxcars and rusty tank wagons. Sometimes the passengers could see strange piles of concrete and iron rubble. These were the remains of destroyed missile silos, intentionally left on the ground so that the foreign experts could check the Russian's observance of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty.

In about 30 minutes, the buses arrived at the observation area located on the hill. Russian, Kazak and U.S. flags were flying over it as a symbol of cooperation in space among the three countries. On the one side of the area there was a wooden one-floor building and on the other, a scale mock-up of the Proton booster. At the bottom of the hill there were some police cars -- a sign of a "VIP" presence at the launch. All of the commands from the launch control center were transmitted through the megaphone to the observation area.

"It is a historic event in a couple of ways," said Lenn Dest, ILS executive vice president, shortly after the launch. "One is the return to flight of Proton, the first new flight since the failure in October. Another is the Garuda 1 satellite, which [has the] largest mass and is the most expensive, as far as insured value launch in the commercial satellite industry."

Other than being a payload on the first successful post-failure flight of Proton, there are a number of "firsts" represented by AceS' Garuda 1 satellite:

• It is the heaviest single commercial satellite ever launched on a Proton.
• According to Dean Senner, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, Garuda 1 is the most sophisticated communication satellite ever built. It can handle up to 5 billion minutes of telecommunications per year.
• Physically, it is the largest payload to fit in the standard commercial Proton fairing to date, standing over 20 feet (6 meters) tall.
• It was the first commercial three-burn injection to orbit by the Block DM acceleration module for geosynchronous transfer orbit. The Block DM was built by RKK Energia. Traditionally, this acceleration module produces only two burns for commercial flights, but the three-burn mission will allow the Proton to place a significantly larger mass into an initial low Earth parking orbit. Thus, the Block DM could be considered as a competitor to a recently tested Fregat partly re-usable acceleration module. Fregat was built by NPO Lavochkin.

"To launch [the] Garuda satellite was not a simple task," said Anatoly Nedaivoda, the Khrunichev chief designer. "The major problem was probably to provide interface of Garuda with Proton. To place Garuda into orbit was a relatively easy thing to do. We just used our experience gained during the launches of heavy interplanetary Luna- and Mars-type spacecraft."

"Our involvement with Khrunichev and Energia over the last eight years has demonstrated that [technically], Proton is a terrific launch vehicle," Montague said. "It was our understanding that federal launches were using a series of engines different [from] the engines that [were used by] 11 commercial ILS Proton flights in the last couple of years. Khrunichev had been able to do everything possible so that commercial engines used today [would] be successful."

Khrunichev used a two-fold strategy aimed at the retention of its clients faith in Proton: On one hand, it showed everybody that it has nothing to hide. On the other, it did everything possible to ensure the success of the first post-accident flight.

"We have been able, with the courtesy of the Khrunichev/Energia people, to get more insight into the causes of the October 27 [failure], of what caused the problem, and how they will solve it," said Adiwoso. "They informed us about the steps they have taken to ensure that our rocket would be clean of all the problems. We knew that this rocket [received] more attention than any normal Proton rocket. As a technical person, I felt comfortable that they have done everything OK."

Adiwoso's opinion was shared by ILS vice president, Lenn Dest.

"We never had any concern about the success of the mission," Dest said. "Our peace of mind was a result of a combination: a detailed evaluation and enormous openness by Khrunichev into the pedigree of the hardware of this mission, as well as the failure that occurred in October. We had no doubt at all that everything we knew was fixed."

Apparently ILS' confidence in commercial Protons remained totally unshaken by the failures of the federal Protons.

"I had confidence that [the] Proton rocket for the ACeS project was a good one," said Lockheed Martin's Craig Renton. "I believe that if [we] had the ability to launch before the October failure, we would have had a successful launch. [Unfortunately], we had a leak in the [upper stage]. [If] we had the chance to [launch], I believe we would have had a good mission."

Recently, U.S.-Russian space relations have been strained over the ISS project, making an impression that the overall cooperation in space between the two countries is going through a hard time. But this project has been an opportunity for positive Russian-U.S. cooperation.

"We think that ILS was a model partnership from the beginning and its only getting better and stronger over the years," said Lockheed Martin's Charles Manor. "[The] Russians are ideal partners who are very committed to the partnership, and we could not ask for a better teammate."

The Proton's successful launch has definitely brightened the U.S-Russian joint companys future. "This success has a tremendous value to everybody: to ACeS, to Lockheed Martin, to ILS, and obviously to Khrunichev," Dest said. "It surely will strengthen the relationship between Khrunichev and Lockheed Martin. They did what they promised to do and they did it extremely well."

U.S.-Russian cooperation in commercial launches could have a healing impact on the overall space relations between the two countries.

"As a matter of fact, I know there were some meetings recently with NASA," Dest said, " and the way we do business has been held as an example of how well U.S. and Russian companies can work together."

Dest does not believe that any economic or political upheavals in Russia could destroy U.S.-Russian partnership in operating the Proton booster.

"I dont think that economic and political turmoil in Russia could impact negatively Lockheed Martin's relationship with Khrunichev," Dest said. "Khrunichev built Protons in the Soviet era, during Perestroika, during transition to the Russian Federation, and they continue to build Protons. Basically, Proton is the Khrunichev technology that is almost independent of the political scene here. Although [it is a] commercial entity, we prefer economic and political stability and of course, we would benefit from it."