The spacecraft was lofted aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle provided by Arianespace of Evry, France on July 5, 2002 at 7:22 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). Since the launch, the Lockheed Martin/Orbital Mission Operations team has successfully completed early mission testing of the spacecraft bus and deployments of the solar arrays and the antenna reflector.

N-STAR c, will operate in the S-band frequency band with a C-band feeder link from its orbital location at 136 degrees East longitude. N-STAR c is optimized for a 10-year life on-orbit, and will provide mobile telephony and data transfer services to Japan and its surrounding waters.

"We are extremely pleased with the successful launch of the N-STAR c spacecraft," said Ted Gavrilis, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems. "I commend our team for delivering a high quality satellite, which will provide commercial telecommunications services throughout Japan."

NTT DoCoMo, Inc., Japan's premier mobile communications company, provides wireless voice and data communications to tens of millions of subscribers. NTT DoCoMo is the creator of W-CDMA air interface technology, the new de facto global industry standard, as well as the groundbreaking mobile i-mode service.

For N-STAR c, Lockheed Martin served as prime contractor, providing the entire payload, which was integrated onto the Orbital Sciences Corporation's STAR-2 bus. The satellite was assembled and integrated at Lockheed Martin facilities in Newtown, Pa.

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