Small-launcher companies are being encouraged to use former military launch pads in the USA.
Tim Furniss/COCOA BEACH
With the help of industry and the US Air Force, the states of California and Florida are refurbishing former military launch pads, at Vandenberg AFB and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station respectively, to encourage their use by small-launcher companies.
With military launches dwindling, California and Florida want to encourage space-related economic development and investment, including the commercial use of redundant pads, to retain a cadre of skilled space workers. The only question is whether there is a big enough market for small launchers.
The Spaceport Florida Authority, established in 1989, has completed a $3.1 million refurbishment, of the Trident missile launch pad LC-46, at the tip of the Cape Canaveral promontory, which will be able to accommodate launches into low inclination orbits in 1995, by Orbital Sciences' (OSC) Taurus and the Lockheed Launch Vehicle (LLV).
On 28 November, 1994, ITT Defense and Electronics and California Commercial Spaceport announced that they were teaming as Spaceport Systems International (SSI) to build and operate a commercial-launch pad, SLC-6, at Vandenberg for launches into polar orbit by 1996.
ITT is investing $30 million in the venture, with $850,000 coming from the state of California and $2.5 million from the USAF, with up to $7.5 million available in further annual grants. The pad would accommodate the LLV, the McDonnell Douglas (MDC) Delta 2, the Taurus and other boosters. SSI says that it plans to carry out 15 launches before the end of 1997. The launch pad would be leased for $1 million per launch.
The SLC-6, nicknamed the "Slick 6", was built originally for launches of the USAF's Manned Orbital Laboratory in the late 1960s and, when this project was cancelled, became a Space Shuttle launch pad. West Coast Shuttle launches were cancelled in 1986 and the pad has never been used. The first LLV is already sitting on this $3.5 billion pad, awaiting a maiden flight in March. Similar work has taken place at Cape Canaveral.
"We see our role as similar to airport and seaport authorities," says Eddie Ellegood, director of operations of state agency SPA. The agency has a staff of 12 at Cocoa Beach, south of the Cape, and annual state funding of $600,000. "Our mission is to provide an infrastructure and services for commercial space transportation to new users, to make the experience more customer friendly," he adds. The catalyst was President Reagan's Commercial Space Act of 1984, designed to encourage the commercial development of space.
Obtaining co-operation from the bureaucratic USAF - and sometimes NASA - and persuading them to think commercially about the needs and use of their pads - such as for the Martin Marietta Atlas - was at first difficult, but the USAF is "now fully embracing the idea", says Ellegood. Martin Marietta and MDC - which operates pads 17A and B - have been given more latitude to change procedures and other military-enforced rules and regulations.
RELAXED ATTITUDE
An example of this is the apparently relaxed way in which dozens of launch customers and guests are allowed to visit the Atlas launch pads 36A and B before launches and even ride the elevator to payload shroud level. The USAF has also assisted Martin Marietta in the refurbishment of the pads.
The USAF contributed $2.15 million to the refurbishment of pad LC-46, which will be a "dual-use" pad, says Ellegood. It is still assigned to the Trident programme and has a launch mount configured to accommodate the Thiokol Castor 120 solid-rocket motor, which forms the first stage of the LLV and Taurus. Further planned enhancements to the pad - with the help of a $2.74 million USAF grant - will make it compatible with larger vehicles, such as the Taurus XL, LLV 2 and even redundant Minuteman missiles, which have been proposed for space launches.
SPA believes that Cape Canaveral and the nearby thriving Port Canaveral provide the best launch services and space business climate in the USA as well as offering several tax-exemption and funding incentives to users. "We want to reward industry for using the Cape area and to make it more attractive," says Ellegood. SPA has encouraged the siting of an Air Products liquid-hydrogen plant in northern Florida and is building a $30 million, self-financing, education and museum centre at the Kennedy Space Center.
It is also proposing the use of other under-used military buildings at the Cape for launch vehicle and payload preparation. One of these is a global-positioning-satellite processing plant, which will be refurbished with a $1.5 million grant from the USAF.
SPA also wants to develop a new customer service centre at Port Canaveral as a "one-stop shop for range-support services", says Ellegood. He compares it to Kourou - the Ariane launch site in French Guiana - "...with the centre plugged into all the pads". SPA also wants to encourage better launch support for the OSC Pegasus air-launch vehicle, with better access to the Air Force "skid strip" on Canaveral for its Lockheed L-1011 carrier aircraft.
"The beauty of this concept," says Ellegood, "is that each company would like to have its own dedicated launch system, which would ban its use by competitors, but LC46 puts companies on a equal footing and lets the launch vehicle do the talking."
Source: Flight International
