Success of the 1688th launch of Soyuz

The 1688th flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle was performed Tuesday, May 25,
2004 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:34 p.m. Baikonur time
(2:34 p.m., in Paris).

Starsem and its Russian partners report that the Progress spacecraft was
accurately placed on the target orbit for another service mission to the
ISS.

This was the fourth Soyuz family mission in 2004. Last year, Soyuz was
launched 10 times with 100% success and performed its first GTO mission with
Israeli Amos 2 satellite. Ten Soyuz flights are planned for 2004.

Soyuz sustained launch rate confirms its position as one of the world’s
primary launch vehicles. This rate also demonstrates Samara Space Center’s
continuous production capacity, as well as the operational capability of
launch teams at Baikonur under the authority of the Russian Federal Space
Agency.

Starsem is the Soyuz Company, bringing together all key players involved in
the production, operation and international commercial marketing of the
world’s most versatile launch vehicle. Shareholders in Starsem are
Arianespace, EADS, the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Samara Space
Center.

The Starsem manifest for Soyuz missions currently includes contracted
launches for the European Space Agency and Eumetsat.