A Proton-M carrier rocket will lift off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Saturday to orbit a Yamal class telecoms satellite for Gazprom Space Systems (GSS), a telecommunications arm of Russia's energy giant Gazprom.

The Yamal-402 satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, is equipped with 46 Ku-band transponders providing for the coverage zone over the most part of the territory of Russia, CIS, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"The lift off is scheduled for 05.13 p.m. Moscow time [13:13 GMT]," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said on Friday.

"The satellite is expected to reach the designated orbit at 02.28 a.m. Moscow time on Sunday [22:28 GMT on Saturday]," the agency said.

It is the second Yamal class telecoms satellite launched for GSS this year.

The Yamal-300K telecoms satellite, built by Russia's Reshetnev space company, was orbited on November 3. Its service zone covers 95% of the Russian territory.

GSS, formerly known as Gazcom, currently operates a cluster of four Yamal telecoms satellites in orbit.

The company is planning to have fully-fledged Yamal satellite network in orbit by 2020.

Source: RIA Novosti