Arianespace to launch satellite for Vietnam in 2008 http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-06-20T090437Z_01_SIN252431_RTRIDST_0_TRANSPORT-SINGAPORE-ARIANESPACE.XML&rpc=66
Tue Jun 20, 2006
SINGAPORE, June 20 (Reuters) - Arianespace, the world's biggest company that puts communications and military satellites into orbit, said on Tuesday it would launch Vietnam's first telecommunications satellite in the first half of 2008.
The European commercial space transport firm will launch the VINASAT-1 satellite for Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corp. from its Kourou spaceport in French Guyana.
The satellite will be built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, a unit of U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
Arianespace, 28 percent owned by European aerospace giant EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), competes against International Launch Services, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, and with SeaLaunch, whose main shareholder is U.S. aerospace group Boeing (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
Arianespace earns about a third of its more than 1 billion euros ($1.26 billion) sales from Asia-Pacific.
"I would say we have about two thirds of the Asian market," Arianespace Chief Executive Officer Jean-Yves Le Gall told Reuters.
The firm has had 52 orders in the region to-date and has a further 40 satellite launches on its global order book.
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