TIM FURNISS / PARIS
Russians and Ukrainians prepare to take up Kazakhstan launch facility option
Boeing-led Sea Launch's Russian and Ukrainian partners are pushing the US company to offer a commercial satellite launch service from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, an option in the original agreement that established the venture in 1994.
Boeing has the largest stake in Sea Launch with 40%. Partners include Ukraine's Yuzhnoye and Energia of Russia; Norway's Kvaerner is trying to sell its 20% stake.
Sea Launch operates the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit 3SL booster, a basic Ukrainian Zenit 2 with a Russian DM upper stage from the Proton. The Zenit 2 is independently offered by Yuzhnoye and Energia for commercial flights from Baikonur into low Earth orbit (LEO).
Sea Launch offers equatorial launches from a converted offshore platform with direct delivery into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The location provides it with more payload capability as a launcher not located on the equator uses more propellant to reach its target.
Flying from Baikonur would decrease the Sea Launch booster's GTO capability above 6t, but it would also reduce costs, which include the processing and shipping of the offshore launch platform Odyssey and the Sea Launch Commander control ship to the mid-Pacific.
NASA, meanwhile, has asked Sea Launch and other launcher organisations to consider making cargo deliveries to the International Space Station on a commercial basis.
But the World Bank, which funds Sea Launch, has stipulated that the launcher not be used forUS Government payloads. These must fly on US launchers; 50% of Sea Launch funding comes from that country.
This ruling, Sea Launch partners believe, disallows the launch of military payloads, and the Bank still has to be persuaded to regard NASA launches as non-military, civilian logistics payloads.
Logistics flights to the ISS use Soyuz boosters carrying Progress tankers, with the Space Shuttle also carrying some cargo.
Source: Flight International
