CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A new communications satellite destined to serve three continents was launched to a point over the Indian Ocean late Monday riding atop a commercial Russian rocket.
The PAS-10 spacecraft arrived in its intended orbit early today after a six-and-a-half hour mission that began at 9:11 p.m. EDT Monday (01:11 Tuesday GMT) when the International Launch Services (ILS) Proton lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
"It was a very exciting time for myself and the rest of the team that is here," said Douglas Kahn, president of PanAmSat, the company that will operate the Boeing Satellite Systems-built model 601-HP spacecraft.
From its perch 22,300 miles (35,897 kilometers) above the equator at 68.5 degrees east longitude, PAS-10 will replace an older satellite that was serving the Indian Ocean region and reaching customers in Asia, Africa and Europe.
"The PAS 10 satellite provides a very wide range of services to the marketplace," Kahn said. "On this one satellite, which reaches 80 percent of the world's population, we will be offering television signals, we will be offering data services and we'll be offering connections to the Internet."
PanAmSat's customers for this satellite include BBC, CNN and ESPN, Kahn said.Kahn added that launching the satellite is part of PanAmSat's efforts to meet the needs of a growing market and noted that PAS-10 is the sixth satellite the company has launched during the past 18 months.
Monday's launch from the Kazakh desert was the first for ILS's Proton family this year and the 20th overall since the company was formed in 1995. In 2000 the Proton flew 14 times and six of those were ILS missions.
"It's great to see Proton continuing its winning streak," said ILS president Mark Albrecht.
ILS markets the Proton and Atlas family of boosters and is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin, Khrunichev and RSC Energia.
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