Russia's launch base at Kapustin Yar, in the sparsely populated area close to the Caspian Sea, will end 12 years of retirement when it is used again as a satellite-launch station in 1999.
The base was first used for a missile launch in 1947 and its first orbital launch, of the Cosmos 1, was in March 1962. Since its retirement as a satellite-launch centre, after 83 successful flights, Kapustin Yar has continued to be used for limited missile-testing work.
The Polyot Production company in Siberia, which builds and markets commercial launches of the Cosmos 3M booster, says that it plans to launch a German astronomy research satellite, the Abrichas, into a 51¹-inclination, 600km, low-Earth orbit (LEO) during February 1999.
A main reason for Polyot's choice of Kapustin Yar (which translates as Cabbage Ravine) is that it is positioned away from populated regions. The centre, also known as the Volograd Station, is sited near the river Volga nearly 1,000km (620 miles) east of Moscow, so a launch of the Cosmos into LEO would result in the stages falling on to the desert near the Aral Sea. A launch from existing bases at Plesetsk and Svobodny would result in the first stages falling into populated regions.
The Cosmos has been launched from Plesetsk many times, but into other-inclination orbits which have not broken safety rules. Despite this, launches of the Cosmos and other boosters, such as the Soyuz, have littered the hinterland with fallen stages, leading to an environmental protest.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, local populations around launch areas have been given the freedom to protest publicly about the safety and environmental dangers.
Similar problems exist at Baikonur, in Kazakhstan. The first satellite launch from Svobodny in March (Flight International, 12 - 18 March), also caused concern among the local population when the Start 1's first stage fell into inhabited territory.
Source: Flight International
