ILS / ROSCOSMOS - Astra 2E Mission poster.
Sept. 30, 2013
Proton-M / Briz-M carrying Astra 2E liftoff
The venerable Proton rocket has successfully returned to flight on Sunday, completing a flawless launch and ascent mission. A Proton-M/Briz-M launch vehicle blasted off from Site 200/39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 21:38 UTC carrying the Astra 2E commercial communications satellite.
At T-2.5 seconds, the six RD-275M engines on the first stage of the rocket ignited - throttling up to Proton's full liftoff thrust of 1.014 Million Kilograms, which is 9,942 Kilonewtons - equivalent to ten Boeing 474 aircraft at full throttle. When engine start-up was complete, the Contact Liftoff Command was issued and the Proton Rocket blasted off from its pad.
Proton-M / Briz-M - Astra 2E Launch - September 29, 2013
The first stage is 21.2 meters long and 7.4 meters in diameter, holding 419,000 Kilograms of propellants at liftoff to be consumed during the first two minutes of flight.
The third stage and its engines performed a clean burn that was 4 minutes and 1 seconds in duration for the main engine that shut down at T+9:31 and 4 minutes and 18 seconds in duration for the smaller vernier engine which shut down at T+9:42.
At the same time, the Orbital Unit consisting of the Briz-M Upper Stage and Astra 2E Satellite was separated - being sent on its expected sub-orbital trajectory from where the Briz-M assumed control of the flight to boost the satellite into Geostationary Transfer Orbit.
The Proton followed a standard ascent profile delivering the Briz-M Upper Stage and its Astra 2E payload to a sub-orbital trajectory - successfully concluding its portion of the mission and handing control of the flight over to the Briz-M. The Upper Stage then executed its five burn mission profile over the course of more than nine hour to reach Geostationary Transfer Orbit with spacecraft separation.
Astra 2E spacecraft
The Astra 2E spacecraft was released on Monday morning at 6:50:10 UTC to begin its own mission in orbit that will feature apogee maneuvers to enable the spacecraft to enter is final Geostationary Orbit to begin its mission.
This marked the 389th flight of the Proton launch vehicle since the start of this historic program in 1965. It was the 82nd mission contracted by International Launch Services. Astra 2E was the 22rd SES satellite launched on a Proton and the 17th Astrium spacecraft to ride to orbit aboard Proton. This has been the 5th ILS Proton launch in 2013.
For more information about International Launch Services (ILS), visit: http://www.ilslaunch.com/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS / ILS / Catherine Laplace-Builhe.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
