Mexico City, Mexico, D.F. and Reston, Virginia, February 14, 2013 – Satélites Mexicanos, S.A. de C.V. (Satmex)  and International Launch Services (ILS) announced today that the ILS Proton launch date for its C- and Ku- band satellite, Satmex 8, has been scheduled for March 27 (March 26 EDT), 2013 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The deployment of Satmex 8 is expected to facilitate a timely and seamless transition of customers from Satmex 5 to the new satellite.

The Satmex 8 launch, previously planned for December 28, 2012, was postponed due to an anomaly experienced by the Proton Breeze M launch vehicle on December 8, 2012.  As part of the return-to-flight process, Satmex participated in the ILS Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) review which recently concluded. The required corrective actions to prevent future recurrence of the anomaly have been started and are on schedule to support the new launch date.