The devices were delivered to the airport by the AN-124 aircraft
MOSCOW, October 19. /tass/. The AN-124 aircraft delivered two communication satellites to the airport of Krayniy (Kazakhstan) in preparation for the December launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome. This is stated in the message of Roscosmos, distributed on Tuesday.
"On Monday, October 18, 2021, the Escpress-AMU3 and Express-AMU7 spacecraft arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. They were taken to the airport by the AN-124 plane," the report says.
Then the specialists of the Yuzhny Space Center (a branch of the Center for the Operation of Ground-based Space Infrastructure Facilities, part of Roscosmos) unloaded the vehicles and provided transportation to site No. 92 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
"The next stage of technological measures is the acceptance of products and their autonomous preparation in the assembly and testing building," Roscosmos added.
Two Express communications satellites, Express-AMU3 and Express-AMU7, are planned to be sent into orbit on the Proton-M carrier rocket. Previously, these satellites were supposed to be launched in 2020. In September last year, the CEO of the M. F. Reshetnev ISS, Nikolai Testoyedov, in an interview with TASS, said that their production was delayed due to the late delivery of the payload for these devices from Italy due to the coronavirus pandemic. In December, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin announced that the launch of satellites had been postponed to the end of 2021.
