International Launch Services (ILS) announced Sept. 6 it signed a launch agreement with DirecTV. ILS will launch the satellite on a Proton/Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in the second quarter of 2007.

The satellite to be launched is one of three 702 model spacecraft being built for DirecTV by Boeing Satellite Systems. The new DirecTV Ka-band satellite is one of two that will launch in early 2007 and will join DirecTV’s Spaceway-1 and -2 in providing capacity for more than 1,500 additional local high-definition (HD) channels, more than 150 national HD channels and other new programming offerings.

The contract is the seventh launch contract announced by ILS in 2005.