Next Stop, Baikonur: The teams of ILS, KhSC, EchoStar and SSL conducted a successful pre-launch meeting in Moscow today at the Proton Hotel. Then it’s wheels up tomorrow for the charter to the launch site.

This will be the 6th ILS mission for EchoStar utilizing Proton, the industry workhorse with 412 launches to date. EchoStar XXI is designed to provide mobile connectivity throughout Europe, based on SSL’s 1300 bus. EchoStar subsidiary, EchoStar Mobile Limited, will utilize a portion of the capacity on EchoStar XXI to provision its next-generation, all IP-enabled mobile communications network.