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| Arabia |
| Russia May Launch More Saudi Satellites This Year |
| 2005-05-26 |
| Saudi Arabian officials are negotiating to have Russia launch six more of its commercial satellites into orbit this year. Riyadh and Moscow are holding negotiations on the Russian launch of the Saudi satellites before the end of 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Saudi Ambassador Mohammed Hasan Abdulwali told the Interfax news agency this week. Abdulwali said Russia's new Dnepr rockets had already placed seven Saudi satellites in orbit. The Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr is a civilian adaptation of the old RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missile that was capable of launching up to 10 multiple, independently-targeted reentry vehicles or MIRVs. It was code-named by NATO the SS-18 Satan. Now Russia's Federal Space Agency is marketing the Russian-Ukrainian Dneper as a reliable launch vehicle for commercial satellites. |
| Posted by:Spavirt Pheng6042 |
| #6 This is excellent! The big problem with the saudi's and molslem militants is they don't understand hor big america is - now they can see that they are screwed if they fight us! |
| Posted by: flash91 2005-05-26 21:38 |
| #5 I'm sure we could launch their satilites from one of the Ohio's. Ah gee, folks I guess we had a launch failure and all ten warheads er satilites didn't make orbit and will impact in about 15 minutes in Mecca, Medina, Ryhiad. You get the picture. Thank you for using Trident Launch Services |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-05-26 13:30 |
| #4 Interesting indeed. Aprize Satellite of Fairfax, Virginia has a 400 MHz UHF Aprizestar commercial satellite location payload on each of the satellites, which will enter operation when Aprize completes financing and developed of user equipment. They will be used as pathfinders for a planned network of asset location satellites (for instance, relaying data from transmitters on shipping containers). These 0.2m-cube, 10 kg satellites will be built by SpaceQuest (Aprize's parent company) in Fairfax, but the Saudi satellites were built by and are owned by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. Not what you'd call "comforting", though. |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-05-26 02:04 |
| #3 and here: http://rpctelecom.blogs.com/satcom/2005/05/saudi_arabia_to.html |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-05-26 00:18 |
| #2 Ah, some previous mentions: http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/2004/israel/06/0406291328.html Also, from Jonathan's Space Report: http://host.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.455 Interesting... |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-05-26 00:17 |
| #1 I was under the impression that the Dnepr was for either light satellites or low earth orbit or both. What are these satellites meant to do? |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-05-26 00:06 |