Russia schedules Proton rocket launch for Tuesday evening

MOSCOW. November 24. KAZINFORM The launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket carrying the European Eutelsat W7 satellite has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, a spokesman for Russia's Khrunichev space center said, Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.

"The state commission has made a decision to carry out the launch on Tuesday at 17:19 Moscow time [14:19 GMT]," Alexander Bobrenev said.

At the same time, Bobrenev said he had no information on whether Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov, who is on an official visit to Hong Kong, had signed a government resolution on the launch.

The launch was earlier scheduled for Monday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan but was postponed due to organizational disagreements between the Russian and Kazakh space agencies Roscosmos and Kazcosmos.

Kazcosmos on Monday accused Russia's space agency Roscosmos of constantly changing launch plans from the Baikonur space center, which led to the postponement of the Proton-M carrier rocket launch.

Roscosmos, however, said that it had submitted all necessary documents to its Kazakh partners on time.

Russian-American joint venture International Launch Services (ILS) had signed a contract with the Eutelsat satellite operator to launch the Eutelsat W7 to upgrade its existing satellite grouping.

The launch is expected to be the eighth Proton launch in 2009 and the 349th overall for the famed Russian carrier rocket, Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru for full version.