International Launch Services (ILS) and HISPASAT announce a contract for the launch of a satellite on ILS Proton in the first half of 2017 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for HISPASAT, headquartered in Madrid, Spain. HISPASAT distributes more than 1,250 television and radio channels through its powerful fleet of satellites and is a key driver for the Spanish aerospace industry.

The satellite will be one of the two satellites that Space Systems Loral LLC (SSL) of Palo Alto, California is building for Hispasat, Hispasat 1F or Amazonas 5. Both weigh approximately 5 metric tons. ILS will dual integrate both missions and Hispasat will have the flexibility to determine the satellite-to-launcher assignments very late, based on business and schedule considerations.

With those two new satellites, HISPASAT will be able to meet growing satellite capacity demand, mainly for satellite television platforms in regional locations and Ka-band capacity providing new Internet connectivity services. The satellites will have an expected useful life of 15 years and will be built on SSL's flight-proven 1300 platform.

The Proton launch vehicle is built by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center (Khrunichev), the majority owner of ILS and one of the mainstays of the global space industry. The Proton vehicle has a heritage of over 400 missions since its first flight in 1965.

President of ILS, Kirk Pysher said, "The partnership of HISPASAT satellites launching on Proton dates back over 10 years with the successful launch of HISPASAT's first AMAZONAS satellite in 2004 on ILS Proton. We are proud that HISPASAT continues to place its trust in us to expand business with this launch in 2017, another powerful satellite to augment their fleet. ILS and Khrunichev look forward to working with HISPASAT on this important mission."

"Proton is the right choice for HISPASAT and allows us the flexibility we need to support our schedule critical business plan. We are confident that the performance of the Proton launcher will continue to support our plan to strategically enable connectivity in these high-growth markets," said Carlos Espinos Gomez, CEO of HISPASAT.