Here is the New York Times report on the launch of AMC-23 (2005-052), which seems to be the final launch of 2005. Happy new year, everybody! Russia Launches Communications Satellite By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 29, 2005 Filed at 8:09 p.m. ET MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian booster rocket carrying a U.S. telecommunications satellite blasted into space Thursday after a series of delays, the Federal Space Agency said. The Proton-M rocket carrying the AMC-23, or WorldSat-3, satellite lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at about 5 a.m. The satellite, owned by Princeton, New Jersey-based Ses Americon Inc., will serve customers across the Pacific region, including western North America, East Asia, the South Pacific, Alaska and Hawaii, and provide links to the world's premier regional satellite systems. The launch was postponed several times because of flaws in the booster rocket. The booster was built by the Khrunichev company, Russia's premier rocket manufacturer but has suffered a series of embarrassing launch failures that led to the ouster of its chief executive by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. The loss of a high-profile European satellite was among a series of mishaps in October blamed on Khrunichev that jeopardized Russia's hopes of earning foreign cash from launching foreign commercial satellites. The loss of the estimated $142 million CryoSat satellite because of the failure of a Russian Rokot booster was a major blow to the European Space Agency, which hoped to conduct a three-year mapping of polar ice caps and provide more reliable data on global warming. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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