New Launch: 2007 April 09 2254 UTC
Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launcher: Proton
International Designators(s): 2007-009A

SSC Name Owner
31102 ANIK F3 CA


"Eleven years to the day since the Russian Proton rocket began flying under the marketing banner of International Launch Services, the heavy-duty booster overnight successfully heaved a 10,200-pound Canadian telecommunications satellite into Earth orbit."

"The extraordinarily long ascent began at 2254 GMT (6:54 p.m. EDT) as the six first stage main engines powered the 19-story rocket away from the pad 39. Tracking cameras at the cosmodrome followed the rocket's fiery golden tail flashing through the partly cloudy predawn skies of central Asia.

Within 10 minutes, the Proton had fired its three lower stages and released the Breeze M motor with the attached cargo to begin a sequence of maneuvers over the following nine hours. The five burns by the upper stage engine pushed the rocket step-by-step into the intended elliptical orbit stretching 22,200 miles at its highest point, 3,400 miles at its lowest and inclined 11 degrees to the equator.

The box-shaped satellite, with its power-generating solar arrays and antenna appendages still stowed, successfully separated from the Breeze M motor at about 0805 GMT (4:05 a.m. EDT)."

"Anik F3's destination is a space slot at 118.7 degrees West longitude over the equator, taking Telesat's most-western orbital location, said Dan Goldberg, the company's president and CEO. That vantage point will enable the satellite to fulfill its 15-year mission to provide television, Internet and business communications across North America."