* Astronomy

For Sale: Two almost-new satellites
ProtoStar is to auction its two satellites on Oct 14. The Delaware Bankruptcy Court approved the decision on Aug 24.

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International Launch Services (ILS), a world leader in providing mission and launch services to the commercial satellite industry, successfully carried the Indostar II/Protostar II satellite into orbit today, marking the second commercial mission of the year for International Launch Services (ILS) and the fourth successful Proton launch of 2009. The May 16th launch comes on the heels of the milestone 50th ILS Proton launch on April 3rd.
The Indostar II/Protostar II satellite was launched for Protostar LTD of Bermuda and will be commercially operated for Indovision of Jakarta, Indonesia, the largest Direct to Home operator in Indonesia.
The ILS Proton Breeze M launched from Pad 39 at the cosmodrome at 6:57 a.m. today local time (8:57 p.m. EDT, 00:57 GMT).  After a 9 hour 15 minute mission, the Breeze M successfully released the satellite into the planned geo-transfer orbit.  This was the 345th launch for the Proton. The Proton Breeze M vehicle is developed and built by Khrunichev Research and Production Space Centre of Moscow, Russias premier space manufacturer.

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TLE Data

PROTOSTAR2
1 34941U 09027A   09136.74240216 -.00000094  00000-0  00000+0 0    22
2 34941 008.4067 256.4972 3472704 000.7932 005.9312 01.57093388    16

The Proton M launch vehicle, utilizing a 5-burn Breeze M mission design, will lift off from Pad 39 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, with the IndoStar II/ProtoStar II satellite on board. The first three stages of the Proton will use a standard ascent profile to place the ascent unit (Breeze M upper stage and the IndoStar II/ProtoStar II satellite) into a sub-orbital trajectory. From this point in the mission, the Breeze M will perform planned mission manoeuvres to advance the ascent unit first to an elliptical parking orbit, then to an intermediate orbit, followed by a transfer orbit and finally to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Separation of the IndoStar II/ProtoStar II satellite is scheduled to occur approximately 9 hours, 15 minutes after liftoff.

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