Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today that while Malaysians have the ability to become astronauts, they lacked experience and money.

"I observe that their talents are not inferior than others, the only constraint is that we started late and we need to acquire the experience, we also need to spend money ... this is the problem," he was quoted by national news agency Bernama.

The premier said Malaysia would launch a programme to send Malaysians to the outer space in 2005, which is part of the agreement signed with Russia for the purchase of 18 Sukhoi fighter jets.

The agreement was inked during the official visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Malaysia early this week. Russia also pledged to help Malaysia launch its own satellites.

On possible candidates, Mahathir said any Malaysian could become the country's first astronauts provided they have minimum qualification and conformed to other criteria such as health, knowledge and efficiency.

"Anybody ... he can be an academician, an ordinary person or military person ... anybody, can be trained and must have minimum qualification," he said.

Second satellite

Mahathir was speaking to reporters after naming Malaysia's second national microsatellite as 'RazakSAT' - in honour of the late Abdul Razak Hussein, the country's second premier in Kuala Lumpur.

RazakSAT, an earth observation microsatellite, which carries medium-aperture cameras, is jointly developed by Astronautic Technology (M) Sdn Bhd and Satreci Companies Ltd of South Korea.

It is capable of capturing digital images of 2.5-metre pancromatic and 5-metre multispectral resolutions.

Some of the components of the RazakSAT's sub-system were developed in Malaysia by Astronautic Technology engineers, including the important sub-system for the satellite.

This is the first time a satellite sub-system was developed in Malaysia by local engineers.

Malaysia's first satellite, Measat, was launched in 1996.