COUNTDOWN

Communications Today, April 23, 1999

A ground control glitch grounded the Delta III launch again of Loral Space & Communications' [LOR] Orion 3 satellite late Wednesday. The bird is supposed to provide C- and Ku-band coverage to the entire Asia-Pacific region. No new mission date yet... An intercontinental ballistic missile converted to peacetime use successfully lifted a UoSat 12 research bird into orbit this week for the U.K.'s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., kicking off Russia's plans to boost its flagging economy with a brisk launch business aboard what was once a technology of death.

Kosmotras, the new Russian-Ukranian operators for the commercial missile venture, signed Cordant Technologies [CDD] unit Thiokol Propulsion to act as the U.S. marketing agent for the renamed Dnepr-1... The launch of what is billed as the world's first commercial high-resolution Earth imaging satellite is set for next Tuesday. Space Imaging's Iknos 1 satellite will be lifted into a near-polar orbit by a Lockheed Martin Astronautics [LMT] Athena II.