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Russia launches Mexican satellite

26 March 2013 23:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite blasted off Tuesday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Live webcast showed that the carrier rocket, with a Satmex-8 communications satellite onboard, was blasted off from the space center at 23:06 Moscow time (1906 GMT).

The satellite will be separated from the Briz-M booster at 8:19 Moscow time on Wednesday (0419 GMT), according to the space agency.

The satellite, built by Space System/Loral company, was equipped with 24 C-Band and 40 Ku-Band transponders which could provide broadband, video, audio service to North and South Americas.

It was the first launch of a Proton-M rocket since a carrier rocket of the same type failed to put a Russian satellite into designated orbit last December due to malfunction of the Briz-M booster.