BAIKONUR, Russia, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Five months after a failure grounded all flights, Russia Friday resumed commercial satellite launches aboard the Proton rocket.
International Launch Services sent the European Hot Bird 8 broadcasting satellite into space from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 5:48 p.m. EDT, Space.com reported.
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It was expected to take more than nine hours for the Proton and its Breeze M upper stage to propel the Eutelsat spacecraft into the targeted orbit.
The 10,748-pound satellite is a Eurostar E3000 model built by EADS Astrium. It carries 64 Ku-band transponders.
Eutelsat of Paris will operate the satellite to beam television and entertainment programming to homes across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
