TIM FURNISS / LONDON
The launch of six Glonass navigation satellites feature in programme following low mission rate worldwide
Russia will initiate its 2002 launch campaign on 28 February with the flight of a Progress M tanker craft to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Soyuz booster from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
The mission will mark the start of a launch year that will include launches of up to six Glonass satellites, in an effort to boost the ailing satellite navigation system.
On 4 March, an International Launch Services-operated Proton booster is also set to launch from Baikonur, carrying an Intelsat 9 communications satellite.
A Eurockot Rokot booster will launch the US-German Grace satellites from the Plesetsk cosmodrome on 6 March, while on 20 March, a submarine in the Barents Sea will be the launch-pad for a Dnepr booster.
Glonass launches will start in May, with three satellites to be carried on a Proton booster, while a second batch of three satellites could be launched in December, according to the country's Space and Rocket Forces Command. The launch of three to six Glonass satellites would boost the constellation by 30% to 12 operational satellites by the end of the year, taking into account the de-orbiting of expired satellites.
A fully operational system with 24 spacecraft should be up and running by 2008. The new enhanced and more accurate Glonass K satellite is being developed to replace current Glonass and Glonass M spacecraft, with a first launch scheduled for 2005.
The Glonass K will have a lifetime of 10 or more years but will weigh half as much as earlier models, enabling two satellites to be launched at the same time on Soyuz boosters or as a six-satellite payload on a Proton. The cost of the Glonass programme up to 2011 is estimated at $774 million.
For the first time in five years, Russia completed an annual launch campaign without suffering any launch failures in 2001: 32 satellites were put in orbit by Russia on 23 launches, out of a total of 58 successful launches worldwide - the lowest rate since 1963, and 30% less than in 2000. In fact, there was only one total launch failure worldwide in 2001, that being for the USA.
Meanwhile, Russia's Khrunichev general director Alexander Medvedev has confirmed that the Proton DM cryogenic upper stage-engine, which flew on the first Indian Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle last April, achieved a velocity of 36,500km/h (22,700mph) compared with the planned 36,700km/h, resulting in a shortfall in the orbit achieved by the Indian demonstration payload.
This had been initially denied by the Indian Space Research Organisation.
Source: Flight International
