MOSCOW REGION, August 17 (RIA Novosti) - Belarus will announce a tender by the end of the week for a new national BelKa satellite to replace the one destroyed when a Russian rocket crashed in Kazakhstan in July, a source involved in the negotiations said Thursday.
A Dnepr rocket carrying the Belarusian satellite, along with several international satellites, crashed shortly after liftoff from the Baikonur space center due to a first stage engine shutdown on July 26.
"We expect Belarus to announce a tender this Friday for a new BelKa national satellite, in which at least three Russian companies will take part," the source said.
"One option is to build the satellite using the platform created by [Russian rocket and space corporation] Energia, and another is to use the production platform of [Russian state research and production space center] Khrunichev, with optical and electronic work to be carried out by Belarus," he said.
