[Satellite TODAY 01-04-10] Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has agreed to launch Vietnam’s second telecommunications satellite by 2012 and assigned the state-run Vietnam Posts and Telecoms Group to be the sole investor of the Vinasat-2 satellite, the Vietnamese government announced Jan. 4, in a statement.
    The Vinasat-2 satellite will cost between $290 million and $350 million and aims to boost the development of the country’s telecom market.
    Vinasat-2 follows the country’s first satellite Vinasat-1, which was built by Lockheed Martin and launched in April 2008. According the government statement, the $300 million spacecraft is operating at 70 percent of its capacity, providing data and broadcast coverage to Southeast Asia, China, India, North Korea, Japan, Australia and Hawaii, with regional oil and gas companies as its major customers.

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