CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Subscribers of the DIRECTV service in the United States soon will receive their digital signal from a satellite launched Tuesday into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Riding atop Russia's workhorse Proton-K rocket, the DIRECTV-5 spacecraft was successfully delivered into Earth orbit about six-and-a-half hours after its 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) blast off on a commercial mission managed by International Launch Services (ILS).
Built by Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, Calif., the model 1300 satellite is scheduled to go into operation by July, replacing DIRECTV-6, which will be considered an in-orbit spare. Overall, DIRECTV now has seven satellites in its constellation.
The new DIRECTV-5 satellite will be positioned at 119 degrees West longitude and principally will be used to provide Spanish language programming, as well as additional local television coverage and broadband high definition service in select markets.
"DIRECTV-5 will provide our satellite fleet with additional in-orbit redundancy and maximize the use of frequencies at the 119 orbital slot," said David Baylor, executive vice president of DIRECTV, Inc. "The new satellite will increase our ability to enhance programming for existing customers, and on a limited basis, expand the number of markets where we will offer local channels."
Arranged by Space Systems/Loral, the commercial space shot marked the fourth launch in three months for ILS, which markets both the Russian Proton and American Atlas family of launch vehicles. DIRECTV-5 took advantage of that fact because it was originally intended for launch on an Atlas booster, but by the time the spacecraft was ready to fly there was no Atlas available, said Eric Laursen, an ILS vice president who also served as a launch commentator. As a result the satellite was reconfigured to fly on a Proton rocket and launched a year later.
By the numbers this was the 23rd commercial mission for the Proton rocket, the eighth Loral-built satellite to fly on a Proton and the 29th to be launched by ILS.
"ILS's vehicles and Loral's line of spacecraft have a history spanning more than two decades," said ILS President Mark Albrecht. "We thank Space Systems/Loral for its continued confidence."
Built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and RSC Energia of Moscow, the Proton-K rocket and its Block DM upper stage was targeted for launch Monday, but a last-minute problem with telemetry caused by a failed piece of ground support equipment prompted a 24-hour delay.
Initial reports from the ILS launch commentators that the aborted countdown was caused by a problem with DIRECTV-5 were in error, Laursen said Tuesday during ILS's launch broadcast.
It turns out that the telemetry problem surfaced about seven minutes before liftoff and when it became clear the countdown could not continue the Russian launch director ordered the scrub. As the word went out, the spacecraft manager reacted to the order and appropriately turned a switch on his console to indicate he was not ready to fly since the launch had been called off, Laursen said.
Somehow that fact was reported through the English-speaking communication channels and was mistakenly passed along to the launch commentators as the early indication why the mission was scrubbed.
With the confusion forgotten and the problem fixed, the Proton countdown resumed and resulted in a successful launch Tuesday.
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