In the Early Morning Hours of September 29th Kazakhstan time, a Proton-M booster lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying the AsiaSat-9 communications satellite, providing improvements to communications capabilities over East-Asia and the Pacific.
Proton is an interesting booster – It’s a 3 or 4 stage brute of a rocket originally designed at its core as a ballistic missile! Impractical in this role, it became a heavy lift rocket for the Soviet Union, launching all of their Salyut space stations, The MIR Core Module and most of its expansions, and even the Zvezda and Zarya modules of the International Space Station.
When used with a multi-burn capable upper stage, it’s also quite adept at launching communications satellites, as demonstrated in this flight. Proton hasn’t been the most reliable booster historically, but it does get the job done more often than not and it does it well.
To that end, enjoy this video of the launch. It’s mostly a CG feed since the booster was obscured by clouds early on but it’s cool to see details of how the stages separate, operate, and get a feel for how this somewhat unique booster flies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoy1Vtqb25g