spacetoday.net: H-2A wins first foreign launch contract

H-2A wins first foreign launch contract

Posted: Tue, Jan 13, 2009, 7:55 AM ET (1255 GMT)
H-2A launch of ALOS (JAXA)

Japan's H-2A rocket has finalized a contract to launch a Korean satellite, its first launch contract from a non-Japanese customer. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced Monday that it had signed a contract to launch the Kompsat-3 remote sensing satellite for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Kompsat-3 is scheduled for launch on a H-2A between April 2011 and March 2012. KARI and MHI agreed in principle to the launch contract last October, but the contract was not finalized until Monday. The launch is reportedly valued at just under $100 million. MHI has sought to get the H-2A onto the commercial launch market for several years but to date has been limited to Japanese payloads.