OREANDA-NEWS. July 20, 2009. The Khrunichev-built Breeze M upper stage that will be used for the AsiaSat-5 launch has arrived at Baikonur. It was delivered early in this morning to the Yubileiny airport on a heavy transport plane of Russian carrier, Polyot -an authorized carrier of the Russian Space Agency, reported the press-centre of Khrunichev.
 
On the same day the load was taken into the Assembly and Testing Building 92A-50 (renown as “MIK”), where an AsiaSat-5 launch team is conducting pre-launch activities with Proton rocket and the AsiaSat-5 spacecraft. In preparation for routine checks the Breeze M was installed into a test stand inside Hall 101.
 
The stand-alone operations with the US will be carried out by Khrunichev engineers. The routine checks will last several days.  After this is done, the booster stage will be moved to a fuelling station at the launch site for fuelling of its high pressure tanks. This will be followed by moving the Breeze M back to MIK, where another series of stand–alone checks will be conducted by Khrunicuhev. Just after this works are completed, the Breeze M will be ready to “see” the Space Systems/Loral- built AsiaSat-5 spacecraft.
 
In the next hall the SSL team is undertaking routine checks of their spacecraft, which is soon to join  AsiaiSat’s orbital constellation. The stand –alone operations will be followed by fuelling the spacecraft.  In preparation for mating the AsiSat-5t with the Breeze M US, the fuelled spacecraft will be then moved to Hall 101, where operations on integration of Space Head Unit will be carried out jointly by Khrunichev and SSL. 
 
The Proton Breeze M launcher with AsiaSat -5 communications satellite is currently  set for this  August.