Washington, DC Nov. 8, 1997 – A new joint venture to sell converted former Soviet SS-18 ballistic missiles as commercial smallsat boosters was signed today, the Interfax News Agency reported from Moscow. Interfax quoted the head of the Ukrainian National Space Agency, Alexander Negota, as saying the deal was a 50-50 venture of the Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash design bureaus, as well as other rocket engine and component makers, equally from both nations.
The SS-18 missiles converted as space launchers will fly 20 missions for
the Teledesic mobile satellite network, beginning in 1998. The new venture
was named Kosmotras, and the name for the converted missiles was given as
Dnepr.
