Zenit launch
Ukrainian rocket maker Yuzhmash has signed an agreement under which the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State will provide financial and organizational support to the company and protect against being taken over by Russian separatists.
The announcement came in a May 8 press release. Yuzhmash produces the following launch vehicles and stages:
- Zenit — used by Sea Launch and Land Launch for communications satellites
- Dnepr — Joint Ukrainian-Russian program that uses converted Soviet-era ballistic missile to launch satellites
- Antares — first stage structure and tanks for Orbital Sciences’s launch vehicle
- Vega — fourth stage for Europe’s small satellite launch vehicle
- Cyclone-4 — Joint Ukrainian-Brazilian commercial satellite launcher with inaugural flight planned from Brazil in 2015.
The full press release is reproduced after the break.