[FPSPACE] Third time lucky?

[Keith Gottschalk]

  On candidates for the next country to launch their own satellite by
their own rocket:

1. Brazil is presumably now constructing a replacement for the one that
blew up on the launch pad. Presumably the AEB budget is for one
satellite per year, so this will go up soon-ish, unless the current
depression causes a postponement. 

2. The South African Government is waiting for Russia  to launch its
2nd microsat (a secondary payload). It plans seven more microsats over
the next ten years. But there are not yet any plans nor budget to make
its own SLV. The one under apartheid, RSA-4, was in reality a camouflage
name for an Israeli Shavit (ie modified Jericho II), locally
manufactured under licence, with royalty fees paid to Israel. Under USG
pressure in 1992, all fabrication facilitiies for this were destroyed by
a US contractor in the presence of a US military attache!

   The most probable lowest tenders for our next 7 microsats will be
some mix of Russia & ISRO-Antrix.

3. Pakistan might well modify one of its IRBMs into a SLV, to seek to
get some national prestige?

4. Otherwise, N Korea 3rd time lucky - or S Korea!

Keith