Moscow, Dec.17 (Interfax-AVN) - The next Dnepr converted launch vehicle carrying six foreign satellites is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan next spring.
“The launch will most likely take place in March-April 2009,” Kosmotras company spokesman Alexander Serkin told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday.
The rocket will put the DubaiSat satellite belonging to the United Arab Emirates, Spain’s Deimos and NanoSat-1B satellites, Britain’s UK DMC-2 satellite, and Argentina’s AprizeSat-3 and AprizeSat-4 satellites into orbit.
The Ukrainian-Russian-Kazakh firm Kosmotras specializes in converting RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (SS-18 Satan by Western classification) into Dnepr launch vehicles and uses them to put small satellites into orbit. Such rockets are launched from the Baikonur space center and a launch pad belonging to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces’ division in the Orenburg region.
Since 1999, Kosmotras has operated a total 12 launches and placed 44 satellites belonging to Italy, Germany, Malaysia, the UK, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Japan and France into orbit.
According to the company, there have been a total of 160 launches of RS-20 rockets that can be used to place satellites into orbit as part of the Dnepr program until 2020-2025.
