China to develop Venezuela satellite
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-03 05:48

A satellite developed by China for delivery in 2008 to Venezuela will guarantee the South American country's autonomy in telecommunications, the Venezuelan Embassy said yesterday in Beijing.

Under an agreement signed by the two countries late on Monday, the China Great Wall Industry Corp was contracted to design, manufacture, test and put into orbit the VENESAT-1 for Venezuela.

The satellite will help Venezuela develop its telecommunications, film and TV industries, culture and education, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said at a signing ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Caracas.

The planned telecommunications satellite will blast off from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Southwest China atop a Long March 3B rocket, a spokesperson for the Great Wall company said yesterday.

The satellite, designed with a mission life of 15 years, will be constructed by the China Academy of Space Technology, based on the country's DFH-4 satellite bus, China's new-generation telecommunications satellite platform, the spokesperson said.

Luis Tenorio, a Venezuelan Embassy official in Beijing, said yesterday that the delivery of the satellite will guarantee Venezuela's autonomy in telecommunications.

It will bring telephone and Internet access to the country's sparsely populated areas, which have never been reached by commercial telecommunications companies, Tenorio told China Daily.

The satellite will allow the government to transmit educational programmes and other information to the isolated regions, he said.

The satellite is also called the "Simon Bolivar Satellite," named after the Caracas-born South American independence hero, the Liberator of Five Republics, according to Tenorio.

The Great Wall company, the sole authorized satellite launch service provider in China, declined to specify when the satellite will be launched.

But it said the company will supply accessory application systems and ground tracking and control facilities for Venezuela.

The first-ever Venezuelan-Chinese aerospace co-operation was initiated in October 2004, according to Tenorio.

The deal followed a breakthrough in China's international commercial space programme four months ago, when it clinched a deal to build and put into orbit a satellite for Nigeria in early 2007.

Though the country has carried out 24 commercial launches for overseas customers, placing 30 satellites in space, China had only manufactured satellite components for other countries, never an entire satellite, prior to the Nigeria deal, Great Wall President Wang Haibo told China Daily.

(China Daily 11/03/2005 page2)