BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan, – Officials of International
Launch Services (ILS) announced that the launch of the EchoStar VIII
satellite will be rescheduled as soon as testing on the Loral-built
spacecraft has been completed.

The satellite was scheduled for liftoff aboard a Russian Proton rocket
Saturday. During the final hours of the launch countdown, satellite
engineers were unable to confirm the complete functionality of a command
receiver on the spacecraft. The launch has been delayed to allow Loral to
conduct further satellite testing.

"Proton’s professional team has demonstrated several times over the last two
years their ability to accommodate customers with tight schedules, and to
launch several rockets in a period of a few weeks," said ILS President Mark
Albrecht. "Delays of this kind often occur in our business. Clearly, this
illustrates the advantage ILS offers with dedicated launch vehicles and the
ability to respond rapidly to changing situations. When the EchoStar VIII
satellite is ready, we will have a vehicle ready, too. "

Saturday’s launch would have been the third Proton mission of the year for
ILS, and the fourth Proton flight overall for 2002. Proton has had 100
percent success in all 23 of its launches over the last 29 months, for both
Russian government missions and for commercial flights managed by ILS, based
in McLIGN, Va.

This also would have been the second satellite launched this year by ILS for
EchoStar Communications Corp. of Littleton, Colo. The EchoStar VII satellite
was successfully launched Feb. 21 on an Atlas IIIB rocket.

ILS is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) and two Russian
companies, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and RSC
Energia. ILS markets and manages the missions for the Atlas and the Proton.

The ILS joint venture was honored last week with the 2002 Market Engineering
Strategic Alliance Leadership Award from consulting and training firm Frost
& Sullivan. ILS was cited for having led the market in number of launches
worldwide for the last three years.

ILS offers the broadest range of launch services in the world along with
products with the highest reliability in the industry. ILS’ Atlas rockets
and their Centaur upper stages are built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Company-Astronautics Operations at facilities in Denver; Harlingen, Texas;
and San Diego, Calif. The three-stage Proton is assembled by Khrunichev at
its plant near Moscow. The Block DM upper stage is built by Energia, also
near Moscow. Khrunichev also provides an alternative upper stage called the
Breeze M.