Canadians Help Pakistan Buy Chinese Satellite

Pakistan just bought a shiny new satellite from China, with the help of Canadian company Telesat.

Pakistan says the satellite, called PakSat-1R, for Pakistan in 2011, will be used for domestic telecommunication and broadcast services. Contracts for the deal were signed last week with both the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Chinese President Hu Jintao present.

The satellite’s chief contractor is the China Great Wall Industry Corp. This is the third time that the corporation has launched a satellite for another country. In 2007, two satellites were launched for Nigeria.

China has also signed a deal to launch a communications satellite for Venezuela. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez praised the project on a recent visit to China:

Venezuela’s Presidential Office also issued a statement in praise of the upcoming launch of the VENESAT-1 satellite, that will transmit telephone, Internet, video conferencing and other signals throughout the region from the Caribbean to Paraguay on South America’s southern tip.

More than 100 Venezuelans have been trained in China to operate the satellite, the office said.

"We will have a tool allowing us to say that there are no borders, or places in our region we cannot reach," the statement quoted Science and Technology Minister Nuris Orihuela, who was accompanying Chavez on his visit, as saying.

The satellite, also known as the Simon Bolivar after the Venezuelan-born South American independence hero, will be launched on Nov. 1 from western China’s Xichang launch site aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket.

The U.S. sees cause for concern in the rise of China’s satellite industry. The Defense Secretary has been charged with reviewing whether allowing companies with US defense contracts to launch satellites in China poses a national security threat. At the center of the debate is a bill signed into law just last week, the "Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009".

Satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space of Europe has built satellites that are free of U.S. parts, which are effectively barred from being shipped to China under U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) rules. Another company, OHB Technology of Germany, is designing a new satellite line with European Space Agency funds that is intended to include a so-called ITAR-free option for customers wanting to launch from China.

Space Systems/Loral, a major U.S. commercial satellite builder, has complained to U.S. government authorities that the ITAR-free option gives these European contractors an advantage because China’s rockets are less expensive to use than U.S., European or Japanese rockets.