Theos

[GWR]

20 June 2007
Thailand almost ready to launch THEOS Satellite
The Ministry of Science and Technology is preparing to launch the THEOS satellite into orbit in October.

The Deputy Director of the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Public Organization), Mr. Charnchai Pearwicharnpong (ชาญชัย เพียรวิจารณ์พงศ์), reports that officials are preparing to launch the THEOS (Thailand Earth Observation System) satellite from the Yazi cosmodrome in Russia. Mr. Charnchai reports that the 6 billion baht satellite will be launched within 3 months and will greater assist in agricultural activities, satellite mapping, and natural disaster mitigation.

The deputy director said that Thailand may not derive direct financial benefits from the satellite, but would gain immense knowledge in various fields. The THEOS satellite is reported to be Thailand's first natural resource surveyor and will be equipped with photographic equipment with a high resolution.

http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglish/previewnews.php?news_id=255006200041

[The Myrmidon]

Impressive, yet what a waste of money, time, and national resource. How can a third world country justify this? What else could have this money gone towards? Maybe improving the lives of the average citizen? Maybe on infrastructure? Maybe for just basic humanitarian aid in the south? The government wants the people to see great accomplishments. These 'accomplishments' in truth bring no benefit to the people, and are simply pet projects of members of the current ruling elite seeking to improve their own prestige. These 'accomplishments' only impress and blind the people to the obvious facts that their country still has a long way to go. Projects liek this seem, IMHO, to be very much like Thailands desire for nuclear power...

[jpatokal]

Hyperbole aside, Thailand's not a third-world country by most indicators. As the article says, satellites are very handy for tracking agriculture, natural disaster, and I'm sure resident 2bkker ncr can tell us why satellite mapping is the greatest thing since sliced bread :D

And I'd also think having a nuclear power plant would be environmentally friendly and a wise hedge against unpredictable oil prices. The initial costs are high, but they're profitable in the long run.

[JamesOberg]

Best wishes to Thailand for its promising satellite project.

A year ago, I was at Yasniy in Siberia for the commercial launch of 'Genesis-II', as the only newsman ever invited there, and as a guest of the satellite customer. I have placed photographs of my visit to the active Russian nuclear missile base on my home page www.jamesoberg.com and would like to exchange information with any Thai satellite experts who have also visited the facility.

I invite any Thai journalists, interested in the story and seeking a human interest angle, to contact me.

More information to come...

Jim Oberg
retired 'rocket scientist' and current consultant on spaceflight operations
Houston, Texas
www.jamesoberg.com

[JamesOberg]

Russia to launch Thai earth remote-sensing satellite on Aug. 6
18:00 | 04/ 08/ 2008


MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will launch on August 6 a converted RS-20 Voyevoda intercontinental ballistic missile to put a Thai earth observation satellite into orbit, the Strategic Missile Forces said on Monday.
The launch from a silo in the southern Urals will be carried out under a contract with Kosmotras, a Russian-Ukrainian joint venture, which converts RS-20 (SS-18 Satan) intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), scrapped by Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, into Dnepr launch vehicles.
"The missile, which was decommissioned in 2005 and kept in storage at the Yasny launch site in southern Urals, has been approved as a launch vehicle for spacecraft," an SMF spokesman said.
The THEOS satellite was designed and manufactured by French company EADS Astrium under a 2004 contract with the Thai Ministry of Science and Technology. The launch has been delayed twice due to Russia's failure to agree with Uzbekistan on where to let spent rocket stages fall.
THEOS will provide Thailand with worldwide geo-referenced image products and image-processing capabilities for applications in cartography, land use, agricultural monitoring, forestry management, coastal zone monitoring, and flood risk management.
The Thai satellite will be the third to be launched by Russia's SMF and Kosmotras from the Yasny launch site. Russia launched the Genesis I and Genesis II inflatable spacecraft from the same location in July 2006 and June 2007, respectively, under a contract with U.S.-based company Bigelow Aerospace.
Russia earlier said the SS-18 remains the most powerful ICBM in the world and will stay in service with the SMF until 2014-16.
The missile can carry a MIRV (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle) warhead with a yield of 550 to 750 kilotons.
According to publicly available sources, the missile has a maximum range of 11,000 km (6,800 miles) with a launch mass of over 210 tons and a payload of 8.8 tons.

[JamesOberg]

Carrier Rocket Dnepr With Thai Satellite To Be Launched Wed

Moscow ITAR-TASS in English 2341 GMT Aug 05 2008


YASNY Launch Base (Orenburg Region), August 6 (Itar-Tass) - A Dnepr (Dnieper) carrier rocket, converted for civilian use, is to be launched with a Thai satellite for the remote sensing of the Earth, the THEOS, on Wednesday from Russia's Strategic Missile Forces' (SMF) base in Orenburg region, a space rocket industry official has told Itar-Tass.

"The satellite, weighing 750 kg is to be put into a solar synchronous orbit at an altitude of 820 km with an inclination of 99 degrees," the official said.

According to open-access sources, the European company EADS Astrium SAS has made THEOS satellite. The satellite's onboard equipment will make it possible to get black-and-white pictures of terrestrial surface with a resolution of two metres, and colour ones with a resolution of 15 metres.

The Dnepr rocket has been converted from the heavy-duty intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) RS-20V Voyevoda (Satan, according to Western classification). The Cosmotras Company, founded in 1997, handles the marketing of Dnepr rockets. The Company comprises the enterprises of Russia and Ukraine that designed the RS-20 missile system. The Dnepr rockets can be launched from the Baikonur launch center, which affords three silo launchers. Yet another silo launcher has been built up at the Yasny launch base for commercial launchings.

The first and second stages of combat rocket are used in the three-stage rocket Dnepr with a liftoff weight of about 265 tonnes. A third stage has been optimised to ensure its departure from orbit following the separation of payload. The rocket lifts off from a silo launcher in the so-called mortar launch -- by means of a powder pressure accumulator it is fired to a height of up to 30 metres where the third-stage sustainer is ignited.

Colonel Alexander Vovk, chief of the SMF information and public relations service, has told Itar-Tass,"The rocket that is being prepared for launch was operational for 25 years and was phased out of the SMF in 2005".

"After being stored in the arsenal, the rocket was delivered to the Yasny launch base in 2007 and was found fit for uses as a carrier rocket for the launching of spacecraft. Wednesday's launch is to be carried out according to the plan for the SMF activities aimed at eliminating ICBM's by a method of firing and for the implementation of the Dnepr programme," he specified.

In the estimate of the SMF official, "The implementation of the Dnepr programme makes it possible to reduce Russia's State budget expenditure on work to extend the service life of the missile systems armed with RS-20 ICBMs". "The Cosmotras Company fully pays to the Russian Defence Ministry for services in the launch of RS-20 rockets with spacecraft," the SMF official pointed out.

Under the Dnepr programme, ten successful launches have been carried out by now, with over 30 spacecraft of Russia and other countries deployed into orbits.

[JamesOberg]

Launching Of Russian Rocket With Thai Satellite Postponed
Moscow ITAR-TASS in English 0717 GMT 06 Aug 08

MOSCOW, August 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Space launching of a carrier rocket Dnepr with the Thai satellite THEOS on board scheduled from Yasnaya launching site in the Orenburg Region for August 6 has been postponed, the EADS Astrium company, that built the satellite, said on its website.

A new date of the satellite launching will be announced as soon as it is set, the company said.

[JamesOberg]

Launch of Thai Satellite Delayed After Disagreement on Drop Zone With Kazakhstan
Bangkok Bangkok Post in English 07 Aug 08
[Report by Apinya Wipatayotin: "Thai satellite launch held up by Kazakhstan"]
Drop zone permission suddenly withdrawn -- The launch of Thailand's first natural resources survey satellite, THEOS, aboard a Russian rocket has again been postponed after Kazakhstan suddenly withdrew permission for the first-stage booster to fall within its borders.
It was the second such setback for the project. The first planned launch was cancelled under similar circumstances late last year.
The satellite was to have been placed in a sun-synchronous near-circular orbit yesterday by the Russian company ISC Kosmotras from the Dombarovskiy Cdrome, near Yasny in SE Russia.
The launch cancellation was announced in Bangkok by Thongchai Charuppat, director of the GeoInformatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA).
He said the launch was stopped because of a failure in the negotiation of a drop zone agreement with Kazakhstan. It was unclear how long the delay would last, but the agency was considering filing for compensation.
He said ISC Kosmotras informed him late on Tuesday that Kazakhstan had made a U-turn over the drop zone agreement. The country refused without explanation to allow the first section of the rocket to drop into its territory.
''We never thought we'd see a repeat of the Uzbekistan case," he said, referring to the suspension of the THEOS launch at the end of last year after the failure of drop zone talks with Uzbekistan, which neighbours Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan was concerned that over 10 tonnes of discarded rocket parts would shower down on its natural gas sites.
Later, GISTDA was informed by ISC Kosmotras that Kazakhstan had agreed to allow a drop zone. The satellite's launch was then rescheduled for yesterday at 1.37pm (Thailand time).
"The (Kazakhstan) case is worse because the cancellation was made at the last minute," Mr Thongchai said. "All functional systems were in place and the rocket was fully fueled.
"We are waiting for the negotiation between the launch company and Kazakhstan," he said.
"The problem is not with the satellite, which is now ready to work," he added.
Science and Technology Minister Wuthipong Chaisaeng admitted he had been a little sceptical from the beginning of the project when the satellite would actually launch, because delays could happen. "Despite the problem, we have to put our best efforts into getting it launched because we have already invested so much money in the project. We don't want to waste it," he said.

[JamesOberg]

Russian Rocket [Dnepr]: All Fueled Up, But No Place to Fly
By Jim Oberg, Special to SPACE.com
posted: 22 August 2008 // 5:41 pm ET

http://www.space.com/news/080822-dnepr-thailand-woes.html

In another frustrating foul-up on the path towards converting Soviet-era military missiles into cash-paying satellite launchers, a military-industrial team in Moscow has announced the 'indefinite suspension' of plans to launch an earth resources survey satellite for Thailand.

The reasons: at the last moment, for the second time, overflight permission has been revoked by a country downrange of the launch site. First Uzbekistan, and now Kazakhstan, denied permission for dropping the booster's spent first stage onto their territories.

"We never thought we'd see a repeat of the Uzbekistan case," lamented Thongchai Charuppat, director of Thailand's "GeoInformatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA)" which owns the European-built payload. The second denial, he added, was "worse because the cancellation was made at the last minute," even though "all functional systems were in place and the rocket was fully fueled."

The rocket, a converted RS-20V "Voyevoda" (Russian for "war chief") known as the SS-18 "Satan" to the Pentagon, had finished 25 years of alert duty in 2005, and had been stored awaiting a more peaceful assignment. The countdown was underway towards a launch at 1.37 p.m. Thailand time (2:37 a.m. EDT) on Aug. 6. Then the clock stopped.

"We are waiting for the negotiation between the launch company (ISC Kosmotras) and Kazakhstan," he told the newspaper Bangkok Post on Aug. 7. "The problem is not with the satellite, which is now ready to work," he added. No other information has been released in Moscow, where the company's website has not been updated in more than a year.

[more at link]

[Ahoerstemeier]

It was launched yesterday, as reported by the Bangkok Post (source (http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=131044), link may expire)

A Thai remote sensing satellite delayed for a year because of a Russia-Kazakhstan political spat, finally blasted into space on Wednesday and reached orbit to begin scientific mapping for agriculture and forestry development from 684km above the planet.

The converted Dnepr ballistic missile rocket launched out of an underground silo at the Yasny space base in southern Russia at 1:37pm (0637 GMT). The three-stage rocket boosted the Thailand Earth Observation Satellite into its high (425-mile) sun-synchronous orbit about a half-hour later.

The THEOS spacecraft will later use its own propulsion system to slightly raise its orbit to at an altitude of more than 500 miles.

THEOS will spend at least five years taking pictures of locations around the world, including access to any part of Thailand within two days, according to Astrium, the satellite's prime contractor.

The satellite will be operated by the Thai Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency, or GISTDA. Astrium trained 20 Thai engineers to operate the 750kg satellite during its mission.

"With THEOS, Astrium has been responsible for all phases, from manufacture to launch, and from orbit injection to utilisation of satellite data for its customer," said Francois Auque, CEO of Astrium.

GISTDA will use the new satellite's imagery in cartography, land use, agricultural monitoring, forestry management, coastal zone management and flood risk management applications, officials said.

THEOS carries black-and-white and colour cameras with resolutions of about two metres and 15km respectively.

The satellite contract was signed in 2004 for a scheduled launch in 2007, but negotiations between Russia and countries south of the Yasny launch site fell apart before liftoff.

THEOS had to launch on a southerly trajectory from Yasny to reach its target orbit. Such a flight path had never been attempted from Yasny before.

The first stage of the Dnepr rocket was planned to be dropped in Uzbekistan, but talks did not reach an agreement between the countries despite "promising meetings" in 2007 and early this year, according to an Astrium spokesperson.

Engineers at Kosmotras, the international company overseeing Dnepr launch operations, began redesigning the rocket's trajectory to drop the first stage in Kazakhstan after the January launch was delayed.

Kazakhstan's national space agency, Kazcosmos, authorised the new drop zone in a June message to Russia's Defense Ministry. Astrium and Kosmotras began final flight preparations in early July.

Russian military officials informed Kazcosmos of the rescheduled Aug. 6 launch two days before blastoff, but Kazakhstan replied saying the launch was prohibited, Astrium officials said.

Further negotiations throughout August and September finally resulted in clearance to launch Wednesday.