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.
[5][6] But a failure in the electrical system at solar panel deployment meant that Yamal 101 was lost right after the successful launch.
This has caused significant confusion but the records are clear that the satellite that failed was, in fact, the original Yamal 101.
In the end, the contract with Energia is cancelled and a new Yamal-300K is hastily ordered from ISS Reshetnev for a 2009 launch date.
After much lobby from Russian industry, the contract for the bus and integration of Yamal-401 is cancelled and awarded to ISS Reshetnev, but Thales is allowed to keep the payload supply.
[5][16] Yamal-300K was launched along Luch 5B 2 November 2012, at 21:04:00 UTC from Baikonur Site 81/23 by a Proton-M / Briz-M directly to geostationary orbit.
[21][22] On 10 December 2012, specialists from Thales Alenia Space carried out maneuvers to bring the satellite into its designated orbit after a premature separation from Briz-M.[23] On 15 December 2012, Yamal-402 was taken to its planned geostationary orbit at the altitude of 36,000 km following a series of four adjustment operations.
[32] As a result of another change of decision, Thales Alenia Space was entrusted with the construction of the Yamal-601 entire system (satellite bus + payload).