Russian missile with Malaysian satellite to blast off from Baikonur.

21/6 Tass 54

MOSCOW, June 21 (Itar-Tass) - Launch vehicle Zenit-3SLB with booster
DM-SLB which will put into a geostationary orbit a Malaysian satellite
MEASAT-1R, will lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Itar-Tass learnt at
the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos).

According to the agency, "the carrier is to be fired off on June 22 at
01.50 Moscow time". This is the third blast-off under the international
Land Launch programme, Roskosmos specified.
The three-stage launch vehicle Zenit-3SLB, developed by the Yuzhnoye
Design Office, resembles in its design the carrier Zenit-3SL, which is
fired off under the Sea Launch programme. It is regarded as ecologically
clean: it uses kerosene and oxygen as components of missile fuel. The
missile, 58 metres long, whose launch weight is 466 tonnes, is capable of
putting into low orbits payloads with a mass of up to 14 tonnes. Malaysian
satellite MEASAT-1R (MEASAT-3A), equipped with 12 transponders of C-band
and 12 transponders of Ku-band, will ensure high-frequency communications
over the territories of Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe
and Africa. Besides, Ku-band will serve markets of home telecasting in
Malaysia and Indonesia.
The spacecraft will ride into a geostationary orbit slot at 91.5
degrees EL and occupies the same position with MEASAT-3 satellite, fired
off in December 2006 with Russian carrier Proton-M. According to
specialists, the new satellite, along with MEASAT-3, will boost
considerably the range of services with an eye to rising requirements of
the market of satellite communications. The estimated service life of the
satellite with a mass of 2,417 kilos is 15 years.
Participants in the international project Land Launch include the
Design Office of Transport Engineering and the Energia Rocket and Space
Corporation (Russia) as well as the Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmashzavod design
offices (Ukraine). The project provides both for commercial launches as
well as for putting into orbit Russian spacecraft of scientific and other
designations.
The launch of MEASAT-1R under the Land Launch programme had been
initially planned for August 22, 2008. However, a launch date was later
repeatedly shifted over damages to the spacecraft while transporting and
preparing it at the assembly and testing shed in the Baikonur cosmodrome.
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