Roscosmos Press Release

August 30, 2011 – The Inter-Agency Commission has completed its investigation of the off-nominal orbital injection of Express-AM4 launched on 18 August from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Based on its activities and analysis of the available data, the Commission has concluded that in the process of formalizing the Breeze M operating timeline, the time interval to manipulate the gyro platform into position was made unduly short. This resulted in an off-nominal orientation of the Breeze M and, as the consequence, in injecting the SC into an off-design orbit.

All other Breeze M systems have performed within specs.

Based on the conclusions of the Inter-Agency Commission investigations, the ban on Proton M / Breeze M ground processing has been lifted, and appropriate recommendations have been prepared, to be implemented prior to the upcoming launches.

The Head of Roscosmos has issued instructions to update the Proton launch schedule for the remaining four months of the year.