International Launch Services (ILS) was contracted as the launch provider. Boeing was specified to also provide an upgrade to the MEASAT ground facilities in Malaysia, as well as training and launch support services.
MEASAT-3 was by International Launch Services using a Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M upper stage. The upper stage made five burns to place MEASAT-3 into a geostationary transfer orbit. After circularisation and testing, the satellite entered commercial service on January 25, 2007, in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 91.5 degrees East where it is co-located with MEASAT-1. The C band and Ku band now covers geographically remote areas such as Sabah, Sarawak, and North India and expands the MEASAT fleet's coverage to more than 100 countries embracing Australia, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.
On 21 June 2021, an anomaly caused the satellite to drift out of its position, causing service disruptions for Astro customers throughout Malaysia.[2] Although MEASAT is still commanding the satellite it is unable to stop MEASAT-3 from continuing to drift, now located at 84.69°E.[3] Because of this, all transponders have been shut down and services migrated to other MEASAT and third party satellites.
Its replacement, the MEASAT-3d, is expected to be launched in 2022.[4]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
