BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan - On August 17, 2017 at 01:07 Moscow time (10:07 a.m. UTC; 6:07 a.m. EDT), a Proton Breeze M launch vehicle successfully launched a spacecraft into the orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch carried a satellite for the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The mission was highly secretive. There was no advance warning of the launch, and the payload designation has not been officially revealed by the Russian government. Various news outlets report that it is the Blagovest 11L, the first of four satellites for a new Russian military communications network. Blagovest satellites are based on ISS Reshetnev's Express-2000 platform and include a high throughput satellite (HTS) payload to provide high speed data connections.
The launch is also significant because it marks only the second for Russia's workhorse Proton rocket. No Proton launches occurred for nearly a year between June 2016 and June 2017, while Russian manufacturers solved build-quality problems with rocket motor components. Even though the problems seem to have been resolved, launch failures and manufacturing problems have drastically reduced Proton launch rates. Proton launches declined from a near-term high of 11 in 2012 to only three in 2016.
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