A Russian Proton rocket
hauled a military communications satellite into orbit early Saturday.
The
three-stage Proton booster, topped by a Block DM upper stage, blasted off at
0410 GMT (11:10 p.m. EST Friday) from Complex 81 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
The rocket's Block DM upper
stage completed several burns to place mission's payload into a geosynchronous
transfer orbit stretching from an altitude of approximately 136 miles to a high
point of about 22,000 miles.
The payload, believed to be
a Raguda military communications satellite, separated from the Block DM at 1046
GMT (5:46 a.m. EST), successfully punctuating the six-and-a-half hour mission,
according to Russian defense officials.
Raguda satellites are also
known as the Globus series. The craft operate in geosynchronous orbit 22,300
miles above the planet to relay critical communications between troops and
military leaders.
Saturday's launch was the second
Proton mission of 2009, coming two-and-a-half weeks after another Proton
rocket delivered two Russian civil communications satellites into space.
The next Proton flight is
scheduled for March 28 to launch the W2A communications satellite for Eutelsat.
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