Cosmotrans schedules two Dnepr launches for 2013
KYIV. July 31 (Interfax) - Two Dnepr Ukrainian-Russian rockets will be fired from the Yasny launch site in the Russian Orenburg region in 2013, Cosmotrans International Ltd told Interfax on Wednesday.
"We are arranging two launches from Yansy this year: a Dnepr launch vehicle will put into orbit the KompSat-5 Korean satellite in August and there will be a cluster launch in the fall. The exact date of the cluster mission will be announced after the August launch," the source said.
The second rocket will be carrying DubaiSat-2 (the United Arab Emirates), BPA-3 (Ukraine), SkySat-1 (United States), IsiPod (Netherlands), StSat-3 (South Korea), three SSL satellites (Canada), AprizeSat-7 and AprizeSat-8 (United States) and UniSat-5 (Italy), he said.
Preparations for the August 22 takeoff of the Dnepr LV with the Korean KompSat-5 on board have been proceeding on schedule, the source said. "The satellite successfully passed autonomous checks and it is being prepared for fueling due next week. The Dnepr LV has passed electrical tests and is also ready for fueling," he said.
The European branch of Alcatel Alenia Space designed and manufactured KompSat-5, which is equipped with an X-band synthetic aperture radar system.
It was originally planned to insert the Korean radar satellite into orbit in 2011, but the launch was repeatedly postponed due to the suspension of the Dnepr program in 2011 caused by a special assessment by the Russian Defense Ministry on the financial aspects of the program.
The Dnepr program resumption was put on the interstate agenda. A decision to conduct three launches in 2013 was made at the fifth meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian Interstate Commission attended by the presidents in Yalta in July 2012.
The agreement to resume Dnepr LV launches was also confirmed at the Moscow meeting of Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boyko and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Rogozin in May.
Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan started the Dnepr program up in 1999.
Cosmotrans of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan converts RS-20 (NATO reporting name SS-18 "Satan") intercontinental ballistic missiles into Dnepr launch vehicles and launches small satellites from Kazakhstan's Baikonur (until recently) and the Yasny missile division's base of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces in the Orenburg region.
In all, the international consortium has performed 17 successful launches of Dnepr rockets since 1999. A total of 62 satellites of Italy, Germany, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United States, Japan, France, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Russia and Ukraine have been put into orbit since that time.
In the opinion of experts, the Dnepr LV is the world's leader in launches of satellites lighter than 1,000 kilograms to a low near-Earth orbit and a factor of the market development and growth.
