Yamal (satellite constellation)

Yamal (Russian: Яма́л) is a communication and broadcasting system developed and operated by Gazprom Space Systems. Born out of the connectivity needs of the natural gas extraction giant Gazprom, the system was spun off in its own company, and opened the network to third parties and even went into the public broadcasting industry. It is, along with RSCC's Ekspress constellation, the only national satellite operators in Russia.

During 1997, even before the launch of their first satellites (Yamal 101 and Yamal 102), Gazkom was planning the second generation. At that time they planned a 24 satellites of the second generation. This extremely aggressive plan was scaled back by 2001 with a plan to launch four 200 series satellites. The first two, Yamal 201 and Yamal 202 would be launched by 2001 and the second pair, Yamal 203 and Yamal 204 by 2004. Yamal 201 and Yamal 203 would be identical and be positioned at the 90°E slot and Yamal 202 and Yamal 204 would also be twins and be positioned at the 49°E slot.

Yamal 101 and Yamal 102 were launched together on September 6, 1999 at 16:36 UTC from Baikonur Site 81/23 by a Proton-K/Blok-DM-2M directly to GEO. But a failure in the electrical system at solar panel deployment meant that Yamal 101 was lost right after the successful launch. Thus, Gazkom registered Yamal 102 as Yamal 101. This has caused significant confusion but the records are clear that the satellite that failed was, in fact, the original Yamal 101.

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