Azerbaijan Space

Exports from West Azarbaijan province have shown a 110-percent increase during March 20, 2009-Jan. 20, 2010, compared to the same period the year before, said director of Provincial Commerce Department.

ISNA quoted Jafar-Sadeq Eskandari as saying that in the past ten months exports from the province reached $461 million while the figure in the same period the year before was registered $220 million.

He added that the weight of the exported items in the afore-mentioned period stood at 531,000 tons compared to 318,000 tons in the same period last year, showing a 67-percent increase.

Eskandari said the main exports included agricultural products, plastic products, foodstuff and construction materials.

He said these items were exported to 30 countries with Iraq being in the lead by importing 60 percent of the goods.

The official noted that Turkey with 5 percent, Turkmenistan with 3 percent, Azerbaijan with 3 percent, and other countries with the remaining 29 percent were among the main export destinations. Imports in the province by January 20 reached $442 million, showing an increase of 30 percent compared to the same period last year.

Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov (Azerbaijani: Kərim Əli oğlu Kərimov, Russian: Керим Алиевич Керимов; 1917 – 2003) was an Azerbaijani Soviet/Russian rocket scientist, one of the founders of the Soviet space industry, and for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program.

Despite his prominent role, his identity was kept a secret from the public for most of his career. He was one of the lead architects behind the string of Soviet successes that stunned the world from the late 1950s – from the launch of the first satellite, the Sputnik 1 in 1957, and the first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute trip around the globe aboard the Vostok 1 in 1961, to the first fully automated space docking, of Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 in 1967, and the first space stations, the Salyut and Mir series from 1971 to 1991

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China intends to supply FC-1 multipurpose fighters to Azerbaijan, Izvestia daily reads Nov.19 referring to the information that design was made with the assistance of Russian Aircraft Corporation “MiG”.

According to the source, the contract for FC-1 production was signed by Rosoboronexport with the approval of Russian Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC). Zimbabwe is also among the potential buyers, whereas Beijing intends to launch a serial manufacturing of the fighters in Pakistan.

Azeri Military Expert Uzeir Jafarov confirmed the information and added, “As far as I know, negotiations were held and our country intends to buy the hardware from China. Thus, I deem our defense ministry plans to purchase the equipment from the PRC.”

Meanwhile, the expert was puzzled with potential possibility of Chinese equipment purchase – which he considers is not widely used. As per Chinese and Pakistani experts, up to 800 fighters might be sold. FSMTC seems to be comfortable about it, intending to supply China with 100 engines for FC-1, Izvestia says.

Rouslan Pukhov, Russian defense analyst and director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, declared that without Russian engines there cannot be any major export of Chinese fighters. “It’s another matter that China might act in its own way. They can sign a contract with us assuring the engines are intended for them, however resell them further, thus causing a direct damage to us,” Pukhov underlined.

The first Russian rockets to be fired into space next year from a space centre in distant South America were Saturday to begin the long voyage to the launch site from Saint Petersburg.

Two Russian Soyuz rockets, the mainstay of its space programme, were later Saturday to leave the northern city by ship bound for the French overseas department of French Guiana ahead of their expected launch next year.

Packed in containers on board the French vessel Le Colibri, they will arrive 15 days later ahead of the first planned launches next year of Soyuz rockets from France's launch site in French Guiana.

"We are in line for the first launch in the second quarter of next year," the chief executive of French aerospace firm Arianespace Jean-Yves Le Gall told AFP.

Didier Coulon, the head of the project at the European Space Agency (ESA), said the first launch could take place as early as April.

Finally confirming the project is ready after a string of delays, he said that the first satellite to be launched by a Soyuz from French Guiana will be the Hylas telecommunications satellite of British firm Avanti Communications.

The satellite will deliver broadband and corporate data network services across Europe, according to the company.

Two other such launches are planned in 2010 -- the Pleiades Observation Satellite and a launch of two satellites in Europe's Galileo programme.

The first Soyuz launch had been envisaged in 2009 but was delayed due to hold-ups in the delivery of the infrastructure that the rocket needs in order to function. France and Russia signed a deal on the launches back in 2003.

The move to French Guiana is a major step for Russia, which has mostly relied on the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan from where the first man-made object and the first astronaut were launched into space.

Launching Russian rockets so close to the United States is likely to send a strong message about Russia's continued role in space.

It brings several other advantages for Moscow, including reducing dependence on Baikonur, which has been the subject of periodic disputes with Kazakh authorities.

French Guiana's closeness to the equator also enables heavier payloads -- three tonnes compared with 1.7 tonnes from Baikonur -- as launches can gain extra momentum from the Earth's own spinning motion.

Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan's flagship carrier AZAL said Wednesday it had ordered four new Boeing airplanes for its growing fleet, including two of the US company's 787 Dreamliner long-haul jets.

Boeing and Azerbaijan Airlines have finalized an order for two Boeing Next-Generation 737-900ERs and two 767-300ERs. The order is valued at $449 million at list prices. One of the 767s is a substitution for a previously ordered 787, as reflected today on Boeing's Orders and Deliveries Web site.

"Two Boeing 767s will be delivered to Azerbaijan in 2011-12. The date for the arrival of the two more Boeing 787s is not yet known," Azerbaijan Airlines spokesman Maharram Safarli told AFP. He refused to disclose any financial conditions of the deal.

"These airplanes have proven their quality internationally. Most importantly, Boeing's conditions are more acceptable to us," he said.

AZAL has expanded in recent years amid a major economic boom in energy-rich Azerbaijan. The company's last big purchase was of four Airbus A-319 passenger airliners in 2005.

Boeing launched the Dreamliner program in April 2004 and the highly anticipated long-haul aircraft is seen as key to the US aerospace giant's future. But the project has been plagued by repeated delays, with Boeing announcing the fifth postponement earlier this year.

Boeing is facing stiff competition in the aviation market from Airbus, a unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company.

Mustafa b. Ali al-Muwaqqit al-Salīmī was another essential Ottoman polymath scholar [19]. He was well-known in the second half of the 16th century as an astronomer, mathematician, geographer, clock-maker (sa'atji) and muwaqqit (timekeeper). He made valuable contributions in the fields of astronomy and geography, producing many books of which those on making and using astronomical instruments are particularly important. These books were used as textbooks in madrasas, and some of them were copied until the middle of the 19th century.
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He was initially timekeeper at the Yavuz Selim Mosque in Istanbul and later became the Chief Astronomer (munajjimbashi) for ten years. He took astronomy courses and became muwaqqit at the Sultan Selim Mosque Muwaqqithana. He wrote most of his works while holding this post. He invented a new instrument for astronomical observation called the "rub-i āfākī" (horizontal quadrant).

There are 24 works which are definitely known to have been written by him; three in Arabic, the rest is in Turkish. By writing in the Turkish language about astronomical matters, he was aiming to make astronomical works accessible in this language who was becoming the scientific language of the Ottoman Empire. He also produced new and original solutions to astronomical problems. Therefore, his ideas became widely diffused among astronomers, muwaqqits and other educated people. In particular, his book explaining astronomical instruments was very popular among those interested in astronomy. In addition to astronomy, he also wrote three treatises of geography: Hallu Dā'irati Mu'addil al-Nahār, I'lam al-‘Ibād fī A'lām al-Bilād I'lām al-‘Ibād fī A'lām al-Bilād and Kifayāt al-Wakt li Ma'rifat al-Dā'ir wa Fazlihī wa al-Samt [20].

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By the late 1990s, NASA had used the space shuttle to launch 15 voyages of the Spacelab module, all considered successful. In 1998, as the U.S. Decade of the Brain neared its end, the last and, many said, the most complex Spacelab flight was ready. It would be dedicated to exploring the effects of weightlessness on the brain and nervous system through more than two dozen experiments that had been planned over six years. The 16-day Neurolab flight crowned the Spacelab series. Physician-astronaut Jay Buckey, Jr., one of the seven Neurolab crew members, and science writer Elizabeth Lasley, bring it all down to earth.

After I flew on the 1998 Neurolab Space Shuttle mission, people often asked me, “Why would you want to study the brain in space?” and “What did you learn?”

Kazakhstan is now developing new ambitions in space as part of the programme "A New Kazakhstan in a New World".

One of the goals of this programme – launched ten years ago by the President of the Kazakh Republic, Mr Nursultan Nazarbayev – is to provide the country with the most advanced technology and to develop Kazakhstan’s own industrial expertise. Astrium, the European leader in space technology, is offering the Kazakhs its know-how via a strategic and technological partnership that will help the country fulfil its space ambitions.