Gazprom Space Systems (GSS), a telecommunications arm of Russia's energy giant Gazprom, is planning to launch two Yamal class satellites by the end of 2012, the company's general designer Nikolai Sevastyanov said on Thursday.

GSS, formerly known as Gazcom, already operates a cluster of three Yamal telecoms satellites in orbit.

The Yamal-300K satellite, built by Russia's Reshetnev space company, will be launched by Proton-M carrier rocket together with the Luch 5B satellite of another operator from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on November 3.

The satellite is fitted with a combined payload including eight active 72 MHz transponders in C-band and eighteen active 72 MHz transponders in Ku-band.

Yamal-300K service zone covers 95% of the Russian territory.

"The next launch is scheduled for December 8," Sevastyanov said on the sidelines of the Open Innovations forum in Moscow. "It will be the Yamal-402 satellite."

A Yamal-402 satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, will also be launched by Proton-M from Baikonur.

The satellite is equipped with 46 Ku-band transponders providing for the coverage zone over the most part of the territory of Russia, CIS, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

GSS is planning to have fully-fledged Yamal satellite network in orbit by 2020.

Source: RIA Novosti