PRAGUE -- Officials of the Globalstar satellite-based mobile communications project have shortlisted five aerospace contractors, including Russia's Khrunichev Space Center, to provide the delivery rockets for their low-earth-orbit satellites, and will start signing contracts by the end of this year.


"The candidates are Long March of China, Proton of Russia, Zenit of Ukraine, Delta of the United States, and Ariane," Rex Hollis, Globalstar's vice president for policy and planning, said at a technology conference in Prague.


Khrunichev makes the Proton rocket, Long March and Zenit rockets are made by the respective state space agencies, and the Delta rocket is made by U.S. aerospace contractor McDonnell Douglas Corp. The Ariane rocket is launched by the European Space Agency.


"We have talked a great deal with all these launch manufacturers, and certainly within the next 60 days we will start signing contracts for launches," Hollis said.


The $1.8 billion Globalstar project, initiated by Loral Corp with a consortium of telecommunications and aerospace companies, plans to launch some 48 primary satellites and eight reserve satellites in 1997, Hollis said.


"We feel no responsibility to any of the launch manufacturers. The only factors are reliability and costs. We will make the choice of launch vendors only on those two points; it has nothing to do with the national ownership of the launch capabilit," he said.


Globalstar is based in San Jose, California. Partners in the consortium with Loral include France's Alcatel, DACOM Corp and Hyundai Electronics Corp. of South Korea, Britain's Vodafone Group, Qualcomm of San Diego, Deutsche Aerospace AG of Munich, AirTouch Communication of San Francisco (formerly PacTel Corp.), Alenia Spazio SpA of Rome and Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California.


Among Globalstar's five main competitors are Motorola Inc.'s Iridium project which plans to use its own network of 66 low-earth-orbit satellites blanketing the globe.