The End of a Successful Mission

Today, the mission officially comes to an end. The last of the ILS Inmarsat-4 F3 launch team are on their way back to the states today. As we welcome our launch team home, we would like to thank everyone who made this mission successful. Good job everyone, and congratulations!

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Mission Successful

We have had a successful mission with the Proton M Breeze M rocket, carrying the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite built by EADS Astrium for Inmarsat. We have had confirmation that the satellite separated from the vehicle on schedule at 3:46 am Eastern time, or 7:46 GMT, 9 hours and 3 minutes after liftoff. Everything occurred as planned with ignition, shutdown and separation of the Proton’s first three stages. Then the Breeze M upper stage with the satellite continued the mission, igniting five times, then releasing the satellite into transfer orbit.

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First and Second Burn

The Breeze M upper stage of our Proton M rocket continues its climb into space with the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite. We have received confirmation that the 1st and 2nd burns of the upper stage occurred and shut down as scheduled. The next events are scheduled for around 2 hours from now. The Breeze M upper stage will ingite for a 3rd time and burn about 10 minutes; after that the additional propellant tank will be jettisoned, and the 4th burn will start. All this will happen in a span of about 20 minutes while the vehicle is again out of range of a ground station. We should reacquire the vehicle shortly after the 4th burn ends.

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Stage Separations

We had a successful liftoff about 20 minutes ago of our Proton M Breeze M rocket, which is carrying the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite. The three stages of the Proton vehicle have performed as planned, and it is up to the Breeze M upper stage to complete the mission. The upper stage has begun its first burn, which is scheduled to last around 8 minutes. The vehicle, however, is out of range of a receiving station and we will not re-establish contact for another hour and 10 minutes. At that time we expect to receive confirmation of both the first and second burns.

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Launch Day

It’s launch day for Inmarsat-4 F3 and Proton M/Breeze M [b]Current Status:[/b] T – 03:50 Weather prediction for lift-off: Few clouds / no precipitation / visibility 10 km / winds E @ 3 to 6 m/s / temp 20 to 23 deg C All systems report GO! No issues being worked.

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Let’s Roll…Roll Out

That’s right the Integrated Launch Vehicle (launch vehicle and spacecraft mated) has been rolled out to Pad 39 in preparation for the launch on Monday evening EDT. Don’t forget to watch the webcast at 18:43 EDT, 22:43 GMT, 23:43 London Time and 04:43 Tuesday Baikonur Time. Live coverage starts 23 minutes before launch time, i.e. 18:20 EDT. [img]http://www.ilslaunch.com/assets/Images/data/The-campaign-team-blog.jpg[/img]

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News from Khrunichev

The Russian State Commission meeting will be held today (14 August) to verify the launch readiness of the Proton Breeze M with the Inmarsat 4F-3 spacecraft. This step is required before rollout and installation of the Proton launcher on the launch pad tomorrow.

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Contact Us!

For the latest news and information, or if you have a question, please email ILS at contactus@ilslaunch.com