Europe's Ariane 5 rocket has established itself as the dominant force in the satellite launch market.
Since then, SpaceX has won satellite launch contracts from numerous commercial and other customers world-wide, including the Pentagon.
This is the 23rd mission for India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - a seven-storey-high, 230 tonne rocket.
So will cash flow, helped by lower interest payments, lower satellite launch costs and lower costs for programming.
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Strand-1 is booked to fly on the Indian space agency's (Isro) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on 25 February.
We are seeing it again as Japan strives to capture a piece of the global commercial satellite launch business.
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Shenzhou-9 and its rocket, the Long March-2F, have been moved to the launch platform of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
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The 1, 008kg satellite was launched from a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
Moderating capex in the absence of additional satellite launch spend post 2013.
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Brazil and Russia to build jet fighter and satellite launch vehicles.
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And is it realistic to think that if they pushed hard enough they might persuade the North Koreans not to go ahead with the satellite launch?
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"I think it lowers the barriers to entry for satellite launch, and for the exploration and exploitation of space technology, for smaller companies, university centers, " he said.
State media say the lift-off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert is likely to occur between 21:16 and 21:31 local time (13:16-13:31 GMT).
It is the 40th anniversary this October of the final Black Arrow flight from the Woomera range in Australia and the UK's abandonment of its satellite launch capability.
This is ViaSat's first appearance in such a report, due in no small part to the company's recent Exede broadband introduction, which followed the ViaSat-1 satellite launch in late 2011.
And these prices are what led to SpaceX last year taking back international market-share in commercial satellite launch, the first time an American company has done so in more than a decade.
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On Wednesday emissaries of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany convened in Wiesbaden, Germany, to discuss their joint policies toward Iran in the aftermath of the satellite launch.
But China's Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told the same briefing that the issue of North Korea and its satellite launch wouldn't be on the agenda at the global nuclear-security summit in Seoul next week.
Although this vehicle currently dominates the commercial satellite launch market, it is facing increased competition, especially from the US, where a new rocket developed by the Californian SpaceX company is undercutting Ariane sharply on price.
The cost of the Mars Global Surveyor probe was roughly 200 million USD for the satellite and launch, plus 20 million per year.
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That would mean satellite and launch rocket would have to be designed in tandem, so customers could not shop around for different launch vehicles.
He declined to disclose the cost of the satellite and launch.
From a strictly financial perspective, a successful launch alone would reassure many of the company's other clients, which have signed hundreds of millions of dollars of satellite-launch contracts with SpaceX.
We have heard a lot about SpaceX and how its Falcon 9 rocket will soon be used to send cargo and astronauts to the space station, but the upstart is also after a sizeable chunk of the satellite-launch market as well.
"In this mission, what we want to show is that it is technically possible to safely approach a satellite, which we launch together with our main satellite, to capture it by means of a robotic arm and to perform a number of services like repairing or maintenance operations, " explained DLR's Dr Manuel Metz.
South Korea is expected to make a second attempt to launch its first satellite later Tuesday after aborting a launch last week when a piece of equipment malfunctioned minutes before launch.
Now, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is looking to launch a satellite into orbit and use a 'droid -- much smaller than the Astromech variety -- to control said satellite.
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On August 18, Russia lost a sophisticated Express-AM4 telecommunications satellite when the launch vehicle put it into the wrong orbit.
The SeaWinds satellite, managed by NASA for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, carries a scatterometer instrument that has measured those sea winds via microwaves bounced off the ocean's surface since the satellite's launch in June.
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