The rocket, powered by a Briz-M booster and carrying the Anik F3 satellite, was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 2.54 a.m. Moscow time Tuesday (10.54 p.m. GMT).
"The separation of the foreign satellite from the Russian Briz-M occurred at the designated time and control over the satellite has been passed to the client [the Canadian Telesat]," a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency said.
The satellite, built by EADS Astrium, will provide a full range of satellite communications services, including telephone and business communications, Internet-based services and television broadcasting and it is equipped with 24 active transponders in C-band, 32 in Ku-band and 2 in Ka-band.
The spacecraft has a weight of 4.6 tons and will operate in geostationary orbit for a minimum of 15 years. Once deployed in orbit, it will extend a solar array with a span of 35 meters (115 feet).
The Anik F3 is the fourth Canadian Telesat's satellite to be put into orbit on board a Russian Proton booster.
The launch services were provided by International Launch Services, a U.S.-Russian joint venture with exclusive rights for worldwide commercial sales and mission management of satellite launches on Russia's Proton carrier rockets.
The joint venture partners are Space Transport Inc., a privately held corporation based in the British Virgin Islands, and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and RSC Energia of Moscow.
The company has conducted a total of 45 commercial Proton launches since 1996, and has 9 scheduled launches through 2008.
The Proton vehicle launches both commercial ILS missions and Russian government payloads from the Baikonur space center, which is operated by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) under lease from the Republic of Kazakhstan.
