Lockheed Martin Ground Team Acquires GE-6 Signal Following Successful Launch

All systems are
nominal following the successful launch of the GE-6 telecommunications
satellite, designed and built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space
Systems (LMCSS) for GE American Communications (GE Americom). Lift-off
occurred at 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on Saturday, Oct. 21,
from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, aboard a Proton booster provided by
International Launch Services (ILS). Initial contact with the
satellite, called acquisition of signal, was confirmed the same day at
5:44 p.m. PDT from the Lockheed Martin satellite tracking station in
Uralla, Australia. Over the course of the next several days, the LMCSS
ground team will undertake a series of maneuvers to deliver the
spacecraft to its orbital slot at 72 degrees West Longitude.

GE-6, a hybrid C/Ku-band satellite with 28 Ku Band and 24 C Band
active transponders, will join the GE Americom fleet of satellites and
provide direct-to-home (DTH), media and entertainment distribution
plus enterprise and Internet protocol (IP) solutions in North America.

Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems markets, designs and
builds geostationary and non-geostationary telecommunications and
remote sensing satellites for customers worldwide. LMCSS is an
operating unit of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, one of the
core business areas of the Lockheed Martin Corporation .
Lockheed Martin has a 41-year heritage of building reliable spacecraft
for commercial and military customers, having launched more than 875
spacecraft and clocking nearly 1,100 years of on-orbit performance
experience.

For the complete news release and to download a video clip of the
launch, please visit: http://www.ilslaunch.com

For images of the GE-6 satellite, please visit the URL site at:
http://lmms.external.lmco.com/photos/commercial_space/ge1.3/ge1.3.html