Telstar 6 will be located at 93 degrees West longitude. When it enters service in late March, it will be one of the most sophisticated and powerful communications satellites available to broadcasters and program distributors in North America, covering the continental United States, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and portions of Canada and Latin America.

"The successful launch of Telstar 6 is a significant milestone in our strategic plan to expand our fleet and provide our customers with more capacity and flexibility," said Terry Hart, president of Loral Skynet. "The state-of-the-art Telstar 6 satellite will provide our broadcasting, education and news gathering customers with the clearest, and most interference-free broadcast video and data communications transmissions available in the industry today."

Manufactured by Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, Calif., Telstar 6 was launched aboard a Proton rocket manufactured by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Moscow, in association with International Launch Services (ILS), a joint venture company of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Russian companies Khrunichev and RSC Energia.

Telstar 6 carries a total of 52 transponders -- 24 at C-band and 28 at Ku-band. Its design is based on SS/L's three-axis, body-stabilized FS-1300 bus, which has proven its worth during more than 275 years of cumulative on-orbit service, close to one-half of the total of 650 plus years amassed by all SS/L satellites to date.

The satellite will generate a total of 3200 RF watts of on-board transmitter power. Highly efficient techniques for dissipating thermal energy and for generating and storing electricity, and lightweight composite materials allow for a substantial increase in the spacecraft's abilities with virtually no increase in size and weight.