Azerbaijan Space

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.

Iran has kicked off a 12-year project to send an astronaut into space, just days after putting its first home-built satellite into orbit, Iran's English-language satellite news channel Press TV reported on Thursday.

"The program's preliminary needs, assessments and feasibility studies have been carried out," head of the Iranian Aerospace Organization Reza Taqipour said on Wednesday.

The Aerospace Organization had drawn up a comprehensive plan for the project and various academic and research institutions must play to carry out a successful space mission by 2021, he said.

"China and India managed to send an astronaut to space in a 15 year program. We see ourselves taking the same path, but we hope to reach that goal in a shorter period," he added.

On Feb. 3, Iran's Omid (Hope) lightweight telecommunications satellite was sent into space by the Iranian-produced satellite carrier Safir 2.

Equipped with two frequency bands and eight antennae, Omid would transmit information to and from earth while orbiting the planet 15 times a day.

After orbiting for one to three months, Omid would return to earth with data that would help Iranian experts send an operational satellite into space.

In February 2007, Iran joined the international space-faring community when it successfully tested a rocket that went into space as part of its planned drive to launch five satellites into orbit by 2010.

Iran has been pursuing a space program for the past few years. In October 2005, Iran's first satellite (the Russian-made Sina-1) was put into orbit by a Russian rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

The use of the space information to provide the solutions necessary for improving Azerbaijan’s economy is considered to be the priority for activities of the Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency (ANASA). Space images covering the whole territory of Azerbaijan over recent years and data collected during previous years are used for this purpose.

In the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ANASA had an opportunity to carry out full-scale aerial photography of nearly the whole territory of Azerbaijan using an MSF-6 camera on board an AN-30 laboratory plane. For this reason, the data archive of Azerbaijan contains information dating back many years.

Taking into account an intensive development of production and investigation into new carbon sources, a project carried out by ANASA in which remote sensing data and geological-geophysical research into the oil reserves of the Shemakha-Gobustan area were used should be highlighted. The analysis of the results allows the development of maps of tectonic intensity at different depth levels and, indirectly, the prediction of oilfields and gas fields.

Aerospace information is the only possible source of information for the study of disaster processes such as landslides and land flows. These processes are very important in the mountain areas of Azerbaijan, which account for up to 50 per cent of the country. ANASA developed a method for the registration of such processes, and on this basis maps of landslides, land flows and other disasters have been created.

Disasters caused by seismic activity occur in Azerbaijan, where experts have shown that earthquakes with a force of up to 7 or 8 on the Richter scale are possible. The last strong earthquake, with a force of 6.5 on the Richter scale, was observed on 25 November 2001 several tens of kilometres from the capital of Azerbaijan. For this reason, ANASA has developed and prepared for production a three-dimensional seismometer with wide frequency (2x10-4-40 Hz) and dynamic (110-120 Db) range that allows the user to register very weak seismic signals (10-2 µm) in analogue and digital form.

In addition, ANASA developed a number of sensors, such as thermometers, compasses and digital sensors of wind speed and direction, for the collection of remotely sensed data. These include a portable device (with a weight of up to 2 kg) for source search and capacity measurement of doses of gamma radiation in the range of 0.005-2.0 mR/h. The device allows the mapping of radiation conditions along a certain route, with individual radiation measurements georeferenced using the Global Positioning System (GPS).

In 2001, ANASA, in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), carried out a project using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and images taken during 1998 and 1999 with a thematic mapper on the Land Remote Sensing Satellite (Landsat-5) on the creation of land-cover/ land-use maps on a scale of 1:50,000 covering the whole territory of Azerbaijan. Those maps, as well as archived data from aerial photography, are the basis of an activity conducted in ANASA on mapping degradation of arid areas of the Caspian Sea coastal zone, including the formation of salt crusts.

On the basis of land-cover/land-use maps in one of the southern areas of Azerbaijan with a subtropical climate, the Lenkoran district, work has been carried out to study the dynamics of land-cover/land-use changes and reveal the reasons for those changes. Certain trends, including decreasing areas of woodland, sharp changes in agricultural areas and other land-cover/land-use types, have been identified. Moreover, urbanization of land most suitable for agriculture has also taken place.

The Caspian Sea plays a huge role in maintaining vital activities of Azerbaijan as a whole. It is not only a source of marine products and energy resources such as oil and gas but it is also one of the major factors influencing Azerbaijan’s climate. Changes in the level of the Caspian Sea influence the level of groundwater and lead to swamping in the coastal zone. For this reason, the Caspian Sea receives the steadfast attention of ANASA experts.