Russian carrier rocket puts U.S. satellite into orbit

RIA Novosti ^ | 14/ 08/ 2005

[Lessismore]

MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian carrier rocket Soyuz-FG, launched from the Baikonur space center on the night of August 13-14, put the U.S. Galaxy-14 satellite into orbit, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) said Sunday.

"The spacecraft separated from the Russian acceleration unit, reached its calculated orbit and was placed under the control of the U.S. customer," the spokesman said.

The Galaxy-14 telecommunications satellite will receive and transmit commercial TV signals across the U.S. territory and provide Internet-services. It will be a part of the space satellite grouping of the U.S. PanAmSat Corporation.

Orbital Science Corporation developed the Galaxy-14 spacecraft on the basis of the modern Star-2 satellite platform. The satellite weights 2,086 kilograms and will operate in the geo-stationary orbit for at least 15 years.

[happyathome]

huh?

[Frank_Discussion]

bnelson44 is mistaken that we can't do this. I was just including you in the reply. Sorry for the confusion.

And for bnelson44, I apologize if I came off as a smarta$$, I didn't mean to offend, and I am sure I did so.

[RightWhale]

Another Atlas launch, to Pluto this time coming up, SpaceflightNow.com:
New Horizons will be launched aboard an Atlas 5 "551" vehicle, with a bulbous five-meter payload shroud built by the Swiss contractor Contraves, five Aerojet-built solid rocket boosters, another single-engine Centaur, and a Star 48B third stage. The rocket will send the probe on a speedy trajectory past the Moon within nine hours and on to a Jupiter flyby in late February 2007. Pluto arrival will be in about 2015.

The 1,025-pound spacecraft is currently sitting in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where it is undergoing tests before being shipped to Kennedy Space Center to begin launch preparations.