A Turkish telecommunications satellite launched aboard an International Launch Services Proton rocket Friday to begin several decades of service for government and commercial users.

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The Turksat 4A satellite has been deployed from the Breeze M upper stage after a fifth burn to inject the spacecraft into the correct oval-shaped geostationary transfer orbit, according to ILS.

Separation occurred at 0621 GMT (1:21 a.m. EST) to conclude the 9-hour, 12-minute flight that began with liftoff aboard a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"This is the first ILS Proton launch for our partners, Mitsubishi Electric and Turksat, and we are happy to have such a strong foundation for our new relationship. We are honored to be entrusted to deliver our customers' satellites to orbit. Thank you to all of the teams at Mitsubishi Electric, Turksat, Khrunichev, and ILS, who have made this launch a success," said Phil Slack, ILS president.

International Launch Services confirms the completion of the Breeze M's third burn, a successful jettison of the stage's auxiliary propellant tank, and a good fourth firing of the upper stage.

The Breeze M and Turksat 4A should now be in a transfer orbit with a low point of 264 miles, a high point of 22,244 miles, and an inclination of 49.1 degrees.

The upper stage will coast for nearly five hours before igniting a fifth and final time for about six minutes to inject Turksat into a geostationary transfer orbit.

Separation of the 5.3-ton Turksat 4A satellite is scheduled for 0621 GMT (1:21 a.m. EST).

The Breeze M upper stage has finished the second of five burns planned for today's mission, ILS says. The nearly 18-minute burn was supposed to place the stage and Turksat 4A in an intermediate orbit with a low point of 167 miles, a high point of 3,106 miles and an inclination of 50.3 degrees.

After a two-hour coast, the Breeze M is expected to ignite its main engine again at about 0037 GMT (7:37 p.m. EST) for two back-to-back burns separated by a brief interlude to jettison the stage's auxiliary propellant tank.

ILS says these maneuvers will occur when the Breeze M is out of communications with ground stations, so confirmation of their completion will come when antennas re-acquire signals from the rocket shortly after the end of the fourth burn.

T+plus 19 minutes. International Launch Services confirms the Breeze M upper stage has completed the first of five burns in this mission. The first burn was designed to accelerate the rocket and payload from a suborbital trajectory into a low-altitude parking orbit.

The Breeze M is now in a coast phase until ignition of the second upper stage burn at about 2206 GMT (5:06 p.m. EST).

T+plus 14 minutes. International Launch Services confirms the first ignition of the Breeze M upper stage has occurred to place the Turksat 4A satellite into a preliminary parking orbit about 100 miles above Earth.

T+plus 11 minutes. Officials confirm successful shutdown of the Proton's third stage and separation of the Breeze M upper stage, which should begin its first firing shortly.

This first burn should last about four-and-a-half minutes, placing the Breeze M and Turksat 4A in a circular parking orbit 107 miles high with an inclination of 51.5 degrees.

T+plus 7 minutes. Proton's second stage has been confirmed to have separated, and the third stage RD-0213 engine has begun its burn, producing 131,000 pounds of thrust. The rocket's payload fairing has also been released now that the launcher is in the upper atmosphere.

T+plus 3 minutes, 30 seconds. The second stage's RD-0211 main engine and RD-0210 vernier engines continue firing at full power of 540,000 pounds of thrust.

T+plus 2 minutes, 25 seconds. ILS has confirmed the Proton's first stage has shut down and jettisoned, and the second stage engines are firing with a half-million pounds of thrust.

T+plus 70 seconds. The Proton rocket has passed the speed of sound and the phase of maximum aerodynamic pressure as it heads northeast from Baikonur.

Liftoff of the Proton rocket with Turksat 4A, a 5.3-ton spacecraft to extend the capacity of Turkey's prime telecom satellite operator.

T-minus 60 seconds minutes. The ignition sequence for the six first stage RD-276 engines begins at T-minus 2.5 seconds, reaching a 40 percent thrust level at T-minus 1.75 seconds and 100 percent thrust at T-minus 0.9 seconds.

T-minus 2 minutes. The countdown is being run by a master computer sequencer.

Turksat 4A is the first of two Turkish telecom satellites to launch on Proton this year. It will expand the reach of Turksat AS into Africa and reach customers from Western Europe to India.

T-minus 8 minutes. The readiness of the Proton core vehicle, the Breeze M upper stage and Turksat 4A will be verified over the next few minutes.

T-minus 10 minutes. The Proton launcher on the pad weighs about 1.5 million pounds, and it will be powered into the sky by six first stage RD-276 engines producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust. It will turn to the northeast on an initial launch azimuth of 61.3 degrees.

The Turksat 4A satellite weighs 4,850 kilograms, or 10,692 pounds, at liftoff. Turksat 4A was transitioned to internal power a few minutes ago.

T-minus 12 minutes. The final launch pad workers are evacuating to a safe distance away from the rocket.

With 15 minutes left in the countdown, everything remains on schedule for launch at 2109 GMT (4:09 p.m. EST; 3:09 a.m. Baikonur time). It will take more than 9 hours to deploy Turksat 4A in the proper orbit.

The Proton rocket's first stage will blast off powered by six RD-276 engines producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust. The 191-foot-tall launcher will ascend northeast from Baikonur, dropping its first stage 2 minutes after liftoff, giving way to the Proton's second stage RD-0211 main engine for a three-and-a-half minute burn.

The Proton's third stage, using a RD-0213 main engine with 131,000 pounds of thrust, next will fire for about four minutes. Separation of the 13.1-foot-diameter nose cone occurs during the third stage burn at T+plus 5 minutes, 47 seconds.

The Breeze M upper stage will assume control at T+plus 9 minutes, 42 seconds, when it separates from the Proton's third stage. Five Breeze M engine burns are planned over a nine-hour period to inject the 10,692-pound Turksat 4A spacecraft in the proper geosynchronous transfer orbit.

It's a frigid morning in Baikonur, with temperatures between 7 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit under partly cloudy skies. Winds are between 4 mph and 11 mph out the southeast, and upper level winds are within limits.

Liftoff of the Proton rocket is 30 minutes away. This will be the:

• 394th Proton rocket launch since 1965
• 85th International Launch Services Proton since 1996
• 72nd Proton M using a Breeze M upper stage since 2001
• 7th Mitsubishi Electric DS2000 satellite to be launched
• 1st Mitsubishi Electric satellite launched on ILS Proton
• 1st Turksat satellite launched on ILS Proton
• 1st Proton of 2014
• 2nd launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 2014

The launch pad gantry has moved away from the Proton rocket at Baikonur, revealing the silver booster as the countdown is inside the final hour until liftoff.

The Proton rocket and Breeze M upper stage are fully fueled with liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants. It is currently 2:09 a.m. local time at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Final preparations began earlier today in Kazakhstan ahead of the Proton rocket launch of the Turksat 4A spacecraft for Turkey's state communications satellite operator.

The 19-story launcher is set to take off at 2109 GMT (4:09 p.m. EST) on a nine-hour flight to deliver the Turksat 4A satellite to an oval-shaped geostationary transfer orbit.

The launch is scheduled for 3:09 a.m. local time at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Check out a launch timeline showing details of the Proton/Breeze M mission.

Turksat 4A will finish the job of putting itself in an orbit 22,300 miles over the equator a few weeks after launch.

Based on the DS2000 series satellite bus built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Turksat 4A will provide direct television broadcasting with a payload of Ku-band transponders and other communication services in C-band and Ka-band.

A new spacecraft for Turkey's state-owned satellite communications operator is set for launch Friday aboard a Russian Proton rocket.

The Japanese-built satellite will lift off at 2109 GMT (4:09 p.m. EST) to start a lengthy nine-hour trek to an oval-shaped transfer orbit stretching more than 22,000 miles above Earth on the way to an operational life of at least 15 years. There is enough fuel on-board for 30 years.

Named Turksat 4A, the craft is the first of two satellites built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. to be sent into orbit by International Launch Services, the U.S.-based firm which sells Proton rocket missions to commercial customers. Turksat 4B will launch around June.

Owned by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, the Russian contractor for Proton, ILS plans up to six commercial Proton launches in 2014. The entire Proton manifest calls for up to 12 Proton flights, including launches of Russian government communications and surveillance satellites.

Turksat 4A's mission is the first Proton launch of the year.

The Proton booster, topped with a Breeze M space tug and the Turksat 4A spacecraft, rolled to the launch pad Tuesday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Workers stood up the 191-foot-tall rocket vertical before mobile access platforms moved around the launcher to give technicians access to the vehicle for final flight preps.

Fueled by hypergolic propellants, which generate thrust through chemical interaction, the Proton will fire its six first stage RD-276 engines and climb away from Baikonur at 2109 GMT (4:09 p.m. EST; 3:09 a.m. local time).

The RD-276 engines can accelerate the Proton rocket with up to 2.5 million pounds of thrust in vacuum, burning for two minutes before giving way to the Proton's second stage, which is designed to burn for nearly three-and-a-half minutes.

The rocket's 13.1-foot-diameter nose shroud will jettison at T+plus 5 minutes, 47 seconds, once the vehicle is above the dense lower layers of the atmosphere.

The third stage's RD-0213 engine will cut off at T+plus 9 minutes, 42 seconds, before releasing the Breeze M upper stage on its own for a series of complex, perfectly-timed maneuvers to boost Turksat 4A into the correct position in space.

The Breeze M main engine will fire five times over the nine-hour flight to raise its altitude and move its orbit closer to the equator -- Turksat 4A's ultimate operational location in geostationary orbit.

Deployment of Turksat 4A is scheduled for 0621 GMT (1:21 a.m. EST) to complete the Proton/Breeze M phase of the mission.

Turksat 4A's on-board engine will do the rest of the work to put the spacecraft into a circular 22,300-mile-high orbit over the equator, where its speed will match the rate of Earth's rotation, making the craft appear to hover over a fixed location at 42 degrees east longitude.

Operated by Turksat AS, the new satellite has C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band payloads to expand the company's reach into the African market and bolster its presence in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.