PARIS — An International Launch Services (ILS) Proton rocket successfully placed Sirius XM Radio’s XM-5 satellite into orbit Oct. 15 in ninth mission of the year for the Russian Proton rocket, of which six have been commercial ILS campaigns, ILS and Sirius XM Radio announced.
Reston, Va.-based ILS is on track to meet its planned manifest of seven or eight launches for 2010. The next mission, set for mid-November, is to loft the large SkyTerra-1 satellite for LightSquared, a company planning a hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile broadband network in the United States.
The 5,980-kilogram XM-5, built by Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, Calif., will be tested for a month at 80 degrees west longitude before being moved to its permanent operating slot at 85.2 degrees west.
XM-5 is designed to deliver 19l.5 kilowatts of power to its payload at the end of its 15-year orbital life. New York-based Sirius XM Radio will integrate XM-5 into the company’s existing fleet to provide radio programming to its 19.9 million subscribers.
The Proton rocket, operating from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, placed XM-5 into orbit nine hours and 12 minutes after liftoff.
