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TS News - Europe And Russia Do Their Sums




TELE-satellit News, 27 March 1997

Europe And Russia Do Their Sums
  LUBECK, Germany, 97/03/27 (SatND) -- Arianespace expects up to 250
satellites to be put into orbit by 2004. This is the result of a study
published by the European launch service provider today. Last year, a total
of 48 satellites were launched with Ariane (Europe,) Atlas, Delta (USA,)
Proton (Russia,) Long March (China,) and H2 (Japan;) a figure up 20 percent
from last year. The market share of Arianespace has remained at 60 percent.

  Currently, 84 satellites are waiting to be launched, 40 of them aboard
Ariane rockets. The study expects satellites to get heavier: around 2000, a
new class of spacecraft could emerge with an average weight of 4.5 tonnes
each.

  The Russian Space Agency also had some figures to present today.
According to a spokesman, Russian boosters will put into orbit 30
foreign-made satellites in 1997 – that's more than over the past 24 years.
26 of the flights will be made from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
with Proton rockets, though. 17 of the satellites launched from there are
of U.S. origin.

  The launching scheme is ambitious, but probably everybody knows that it
will experience delays. Among the curiosities are an American
communications sub-satellite called FiSat-2B, which will be launched as
piggyback load of a Russian KOSMOS (spy?) satellite, and a Swedish
spacecraft called Astrid-2 (but not Lindgren.) 

  By: Peter Klanowski
  Source: Sat-ND

(c)TELE-satellit 1997. All rights reserved.


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