ILS, Intelsat, Khrunichev and SSL recently celebrated the successful June 9 ILS Proton launch of the Intelsat 31 satellite. The celebration, in Washington, D.C., was marked with commemorative gifts, recognizing the respective partnerships and collective teams of professionals from each organization.

Intelsat 31 was the 12th satellite launched for Intelsat by ILS since 1997 and was also the 28th SSL satellite, representing nearly a third of all ILS satellite launches to date.

The ILS Proton launch of Intelsat 31 was also the 6th Super-Synchronous Transfer Orbit (SSTO) mission for ILS, with precise injection into SSTO by the heritage launcher, its 412th mission since 1963.