[FPSPACE] Uncertainty shrouds South African Satellite

[Keith Gottschalk]

Dear Baris,

   thanks for your URLS or links drawing our attention to these news
reports. My thoughts are that Martin Creamer's Engineering News is a
fairly respected trade magazine in South Africa. It operates under the
pressures of most trade mags, it would be reluctant to offend any major
advertiser, but what it does publish is usually credible.

   The links lead to articles by their journalist Keith Campbell, that
do include a fair amount of speculation and pushing the envelope as to
what can be deduced or inferred from Anatoly Perminov's statement. For
example, South African peacekeeping forces serving with other African
Union or UN peacekeepers hardly justify the huge budget for a
communications or reconnaissance satellite. 

    It would be far more cost-effective for our far-flung peace-keepers
in Darfur, the Central African Republic, and Burundi, to use satellite
phones. Using locally-made off-the-shelf UAVs would be vastly cheaper
than a recon sat. While a recon sat would probably only be able to
re-photograph the same area every twenty days on average, a UAV can go
on a recce twice per day or night. African rebels in Chad or elsewhere
may have night vision and satellite phone equipment, but not
anti-aircraft missiles.

     So my response, so far, is: curiouser and curiouser! 

      For example, where could past Defence budgets have hidden the
huge sums necessary for foreign exchange to buy a spysat?  But let us
know any more titbits that you uncover.

yours from the far south, Keith.

>>> "Baris Gencay" <baris.gencay at gmail.com> 02/19/08 11:56 AM >>>
>Another angle of SA Satellite dispute is here;
>
>http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=126455 
>
>SA 'spy-satellite' programme accidently exposed?
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Keith Gottschalk" <kgottschalk at uwc.ac.za>
>To: <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
>Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 12:55 PM
>Subject: [FPSPACE] Uncertainty shrouds South African Satellite
>
>
>> hi,
>>
>> the news stories linked talk about "using a Russian military
satellite"
>> but say not a word about any "related with building Russian TT&C
Station
>> at SA."
>>
>>   Pending more hard facts, all this seems weird to me. What on
earth
>> use could South Africa make of a Russian military satellite? It is
at
>> peace in a common market with its neighbours - not exactly a need
for
>> imagery intelligence!
>>
>>   South Africa's own TT&C stations regularly download encrypted
data
>> for paying foreign clients, which it hands over to them
undeciphered. So
>> I am bursting with curiosity - but have no more facts.
>>
>> Keith
>>
>>>>>> "Baris Gencay" <baris.gencay at gmail.com> 02/18/08 11:19 AM >>>
>>>http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4256508 
>>>
>>>The link above suggests that Sumbandilasat may be launched from
India
>> or China. That means, satellite doesn't have
>>>obvious parts which can be hurdle to launch from these 2 countries.
>> The Russian reasons to refuse the launch sounds
>>>related with building Russian TT&C Station at SA. Most probably,
>> Russians proposed SA to use the satellite data free of
>>>charge or even for a less price. And SA didn't accept.
>>>
>>>Can anybody make comment?
>>>
>>>http://www.sabcnews.com/sci_tech/science/0,2172,164128,00.html 
>>>
>>>Another link above is another source that mentioned about the same
>> development.

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