AsiaSat and SSL teams with the AsiaSat 9 payload before shipment.
Another launch planned for ILS for Friday, September 29, with a replacement satellite for AsiaSat to improve power and efficiency for customers' services, and it carries the worlds first dedicated Ku-band Myanmar beam.
AsiaSat 9, built by SSL AsiaSat’s most powerful satellite, is designed to deliver significantly improved power and higher bandwidth usage to generate higher efficiency for customers’ services.
It's a replacement satellite for AsiaSat 4 at 122 degrees E with multiple C,
Ku- and Ka-Band payloads, and carries the world’s first dedicated Ku-band Myanmar beam, new Ku-band beams for Indonesia and Mongolia, in addition to two enhanced Ku-band beams serving Australasia and East Asia and a wider high-power C-band coverage across the Asia-Pacific region. The five Ku-band beams onboard AsiaSat 9 are equipped with cross-strap beam switching capability to provide flexible coverage.
Offloading the AsiaSat 9 container from a transport aircraft at the Baikonur airport.
The Proton M launch vehicle, utilizing a 5-burn Breeze M mission design, will lift off from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with the AsiaSat 9 satellite on board. The first three stages of the Proton will use a standard ascent profile to place the orbital unit (Breeze M upper stage and the AsiaSat 9 satellite) into a sub-orbital trajectory. From this point in the mission, the Breeze M will perform
planned mission maneuvers to advance the orbital unit first to a nearly circular parking orbit, then to an intermediate orbit, followed by a transfer orbit, and finally to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Separation of the AsiaSat 9 satellite is scheduled to occur approximately 9 hours, 13 minutes after lift-off.
This marks the 96th ILS Proton launch and 416th Proton launch overall. This is the third ILS Proton launch of 2017 and the fifth AsiaSat satellite launched on an ILS Proton. This is SSL's 31st satellite launched on a Proton.
Launch Times:
- 00:52:16 Baikonur
- 02:52:16 Hong Kong
- 18:52:16 UTC/GMT (September 28)
- 14:52:16 Reston (September 28)
- 11:52:16 Palo Alto (September 28)