Following the additional verifications of the cables and connectors associated with last night’s issue which resulted in a delay to the Intelsat 31 launch, the problem has been isolated to a connector on the flight vehicle. The ground system was wrongly identified as the cause of today’s delay. The flight connector issue has been resolved and the vehicle cleared for flight.

The Proton launch vehicle and the Intelsat 31 satellite remain in a safe configuration at the launch site awaiting launch. Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and International Launch Services (ILS) plan to make another attempt at 13:10 Baikonour time, tomorrow, June 9. The satellite was built for Intelsat S.A. of Luxembourg by SSL of Palo Alto, California.

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Contact: Karen Monaghan, Director of Communications, International Launch Services, Reston, VA.; +1-571-633-7549; mobile: +1-571-282-5195; k.monaghan@ilslaunch.com.