. 24/7 Space News .
SPACE WIRE
US satellite successfully placed in orbit
  • Parisians brace for flooding risks as Seine creeps higher
  • Volcanos, earthquakes: Is the 'Ring of Fire' alight?
  • Finland's president Niinisto on course for second term
  • Record rain across soggy France keeps Seine rising
  • Record rain across sodden France keeps Seine rising
  • State of emergency as floods worry Paraguay capital
  • Panic and blame as Cape Town braces for water shut-off
  • Fresh tremors halt search ops after Japan volcano eruption
  • Cape Town now faces dry taps by April 12
  • Powerful quake hits off Alaska, but tsunami threat lifted
    • BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) Aug 14, 2005
     A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying US telecommunications satellite Galaxy-14 blasted off from Russia's Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan early Sunday after a 24-hour postponement and successfully placed it in orbit.

    The blastoff was at 5:28 am (2328 GMT Saturday) and the satellite was placed into geostationary orbit one hour and 37 minutes later.

    The postponement was decided upon just 30 seconds before the scheduled launch on Saturday due to difficulties in transmitting information about the parameters of the launcher, said Jean-Yves Le Gall, general director of Starsem, the Euro-Russian subsidiary of Arianespace.

    The two-tonne Galaxy-14 was placed in orbit for American operator PanAmsat. The launch, initially scheduled for August 5, was already put off to enable extra checks to be made on the satellite.

    Starsem is in charge of selling and exploiting Soyuz on the international market. It is owned by European company Arianespace (15 percent), European aeronautics group EADS (35 percent), Russian federal space agency Roscosmos (25 percent) and Russia's Samara space centre (25 percent).

    Galaxy-14, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, will supply services including digital video programs and high-definition television over the whole of the United States.




    All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.