Net-dedicated Heavenly Body Launches

The second European heavenly body dedicated to delivering broadband internet connectors has launched.

The six-tonne Ka-Sat carried off atop a Proton space station from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 0351 local time on Monday (2151 GMT on Sunday).

The flight was approaching to final 9 hours and 12 minutes.

The Eutelsat-operated booster will combine its services on the estimated tens of millions of European homes in supposed "not-spots".

These are places where consumers cannot obtain a decent terrestrial connection.

The booster follows the Hylas-1 stage in to orbit. This satellite, operated by Avanti Communications of London, was launched only final month.

Ka-Sat, however, is extremely bigger, and has a notional ability to offer up to two million households compared with Hylas's 300,000.

Nevertheless, such is the scale of the under-served marketplace in Europe that both platforms should be really essential ventures, the two companies believe.

"As many as 30 million households in Europe are not served at all or obtain high ordibariness of service," mentioned Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen.

"These could be people in the panorama or in the mountains, infrequently not really far from considerable cities. Ka-Sat is an answer to that problem," he told BBC News.

Paris-based Eutelsat is a of the world's big 3 Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies, and transmits thousands of TV channels opposite its navy of spacecraft.

It already provides a few internet capability on its existing platforms, but Ka-Sat is its initial broadband-dedicated endeavour.

Ka-Sat will be positioned about 36,000km on top of the equator at 9 degrees east.

Its communications payload, make up and thrust network were ready by EADS Astrium at its UK services in Stevenage and Portsmouth.

Final contrast of the booster took place at Astrium's assembly lines in Toulouse, France, before conveyance to Baikonur.

Ka-Sat has a complete throughput of a few 70Gbps.

This will be channelled around 82 mark beams on to not similar marketplace areas stretching from North Africa to southern Scandinavia. A really tiny portion of the Middle East will moreover be reached.

Eutelsat has sealed about 70 deals with distributors opposite the satellite's "footprint", and more would be sealed over the next year, mentioned Mr de Rosen.

"It takes routinely a few weeks for a heavenly body to turn functional after launch," he explained.

"In this case, it is more likely to be a few months. Expect Ka-Sat to be functional in the second half of the second entertain of 2011."

Ka-Sat's Proton space station is beneath the spotlight for this flight.

The Russian van unsuccessful on its final excursion 4 weeks ago, transfer 3 Glonass satellite-navigation booster in the Pacific Ocean.

An exploration found the Proton's new Block DM-03 upper-stage had been over-fuelled, creation it as well complicated to accomplish its compulsory performance.

International Launch Services (ILS), that runs the blurb operations of the Proton vehicle, is using a not similar upper-stage is to Ka-Sat mission.

This Breeze M stage has a great new record.

It is the eighth and final ILS-organised Proton assignment of 2010.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk