Five satellites from three countries are set to ride into orbit Friday atop a converted Russian ballistic missile launched from an underground silo in Kazakhstan.

The former Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), renamed Dnepr 1, is scheduled for launch at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (10:00 GMT) from silo complex number 109 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It will carry two Saudi, two Italian and a Malaysian spacecraft into a 404-mile- (650-kilometer-) high orbit.

A modified Russian missile, now known as Dnepr, launches from a silo at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Prior to its assignment to carry cargo to space, the very same rocket -- then designated R-36M -- spent about two decades sitting battle-ready in its silo with multiple nuclear warheads aimed at the United States.

Known by its NATO classification as the SS-18 Satan, this type of missile was the biggest and most destructive weapon in the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Thanks to arms-control treaties between the United States and Russia, a number of military SS-18s have been retired.

As was done with a number of aging U.S. missiles, Russia decided to convert this Cold War weapon into a commercial space booster. According to Russian aerospace specialists, the reason for using RS-20 as a launch vehicle is not so much to generate profit but to avoid expenses related to destroying them, which amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

KB Yuzhnoe, a former manufacturer of the R-36M missiles based in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, created an organization called Kosmotras with the goal of converting around 150 SS-18s into space launchers and marketing them to potential clients around the world. Kosmotras also recruited Utah-based Thiokol Propulsion to market the rocket abroad.

Like its military precursor, the more then 200-ton Dnepr 1 rocket is pushed out of its underground launch complex by the force of compressed gas. After the rocket clears the silo, its main engines ignite. Unlike most space launchers, the upper stage of Dnepr 1 pulls its cargo behind it rather then pushing it -- another legacy of its nuclear-tipped missile design.

In its first space launch on April 21, 1999, an R-36M missile, renamed Dnepr-1, successfully delivered a British test satellite, UoSAT-12, into orbit.

For the upcoming mission, MKK Kosmotras has booked five different payloads:

• Two 22-pound (10-kilogram) research satellites, Saudisat 1A and 1B, for the Saudi Institute for Space Research
• A 10-kilogram UniSat microsatellite from the University of Rome La Sapienza, which will carry an experiment studying micro-particles in space and a small 3-mile- (5-kilometer-) resolution camera
• A 119-pound (54-kilogram) Megsat 1 data-relay satellite for MegSat S.p.A., an Italian telecommunications company. The spacecraft will store and relay data from mobile and stationary sensors
• And a 119-pound (54-kilogram) remote-sensing payload TiungSat-1 for Malaysian company ATSB. The platform for the satellite was developed by the British Company Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).

Kosmotras would not comment on the cost of the launch, however, the company's advertised to deliver payloads with the Dnepr booster for prices as low as $10,000 per kilogram.

Since the Dnepr 1 will not be carrying its full payload capacity for this second mission, the cost of the launch will be higher than advertised. Kosmotras representatives said that the mission would not be profitable and was partially subsidized by the Russian government.

Kosmotras has already announced that a third launch of the Dnepr 1 booster will take place in the second quarter of 2001. The company also has announced its intention to develop a new version of the booster called Dnepr M, featuring an upgraded upper stage.