A Russian Dnepr 1 booster was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 20 December on a Kosmotras commercial mission carrying five minisatellites and a sixth payload. The launcher is a converted RS-20 (SS-18) intercontinental ballistic missile.
The satellites were Italy's Unisat 2, two Latinsat craft from Argentina, Saudi Arabia's Saudisat 1C and Rubin 2 from Germany. The rocket also carried a prototype of a commercial moon orbiter to be launched by Kosmotras on a proposed $20 million mission for US company TrailBlazer.
Two days earlier, NASA launched the SOAREX 2 suborbital aerodynamic re-entry experiment to demonstrate new high-speed flight test and control methods. The 18 December launch from Wallops Island used a Lockheed Martin-built liquid-oxygen/solid-propellant hybrid propulsion system and the three-part payload reached an altitude of 70km (45 miles).
The three SOAREX 2 payloads were a wedge-shaped "waverider" projectile, a linear-aerobrake hypersonic parachute and the Slotted Compression Ramp Probe, a "super-stable" planetary re-entry craft.
The launch was the first test flight of a large hybrid propulsion system. Built to demonstrate that hybrid liquid-oxygen/solid-propellant propulsion offers a low-cost, environmentally benign means of delivering payloads, the 18m (60ft)-long, 2m-diameter rocket provided 60,000lb (267kN) of thrust.
Source: Flight International
