The European Space Agency says it could replace its Cryosat environmental probe, which crashed into the sea after the failure of its Russian Rockot launch vehicle on 8 October. The Briz M upper stage did not separate from the Rockot second stage and the combined stack, including payload, fell into the sea close to the North Pole.

Cryosat was to be the first of ESA’s Earth Explorer probes, and would have studied the thickness of the polar ice sheets. “Rebuilding the satellite is one of the things we have to study now together with industry and partners. We have to ask for the decision of the ESA member states,” says Earth observation director Volker Liebig. He says building a “clone” of Cryosat would not be as expensive as the original, which was budgeted at €136 million ($164 million) for construction, ground systems, launch and operations.

Russia’s space agency has grounded all flights of the Rockot after the failure of the launch from Plesetsk, operated by German-Russian venture Eurockot. It is thought the second stage of the converted SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile failed to separate after a fault in the flight-control system.

It was the first failure in six Eurockot-operated launches. Russia made two Rockot test launches in 1990-1, followed by an operational launch in 1994. Eurockot then launched its first commercial mission in May 2000. The next Eurockot launch was due to carry South Korea’s Kompsat 2 communications satellite, already delayed from November 2004, in December.

-Euro-Russian consortium Star­sem will launch four Globalstar communications satellites aboard a Soyuz booster from Baikonur in 2007, with an option of a second launch of four more craft.

ROB COPPINGER & TIM FURNISS/LONDON

Source: Flight International