Russia may have to abandon its manned space programme this year because of a severe shortage of funds, Yuri Koptev, director-general of the Russian Space Agency has warned the Government.
It has been planned that the country's Mir 1 space station will be the base for several international missions in 1997, and that it will continue to be manned permanently this year. These plans are now under threat, says Koptev.
The cash crisis has also placed question marks against the launches of the Corona, Resurs, Okean and Foton spacecraft and the new Kupon and Yamal communications satellites.
Funding for the national space programme has been cut by 80% since 1989. Koptev says that the country has "practically no reserve of booster rockets".
Almost half the Russian communications satellites in orbit are so outdated that they could stop operating "at any time", Koptev has warned Moscow. The crisis has delayed the production of the Service Module of the International Space Station (ISS) by at least eight months, which will upset the planned assembly schedule (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996).
Koptev's warnings are echoed by Yuri Poletayev, an executive of the Russian commercial space organisation, Glavcosmos, who has told Government officials that 80% of the space industry's engineers and workers have left the space programme and commercial contracts, such as satellite launches, "-will not survive" without Government assistance.
Seven launches of Western communications satellites are scheduled for Proton commercial flights this year (Flight International, 11-17 December, 1996).
Poletayev says that it will be essential to keep the Mir 1 space station operational for several more years, despite plans for the ISS to be manned first in 1998, to generate income from visits by international cosmonauts on commercial missions.
For example, a French commercial mission is planned for as late as 1999. The Mir is "our national pride and a source of funds from the West", he says.
Despite the problems, the US Space Shuttle Atlantis/STS81 is scheduled to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 12 January to conduct the fifth Shuttle Mir Mission (SMM).
The STS81 - the first of a planned eight Shuttle missions in 1997 - will dock at the Mir on 13 January to start five days of joint experiments. The Atlantis, which will carry a Spacehab double-module, will deliver 650kg of equipment and 590kg of water to the station.
The five-man crew, under the command of Michael Baker, will work with Russian cosmonauts Valeri Korzun and Alexander Kaleri and NASA astronaut John Blaha, who arrived at the Mir in September, aboard the STS79.
Blaha will return to Earth aboard the STS81 on 22 January, leaving astronaut Jerry Linenger aboard the Mir with Korzun and Kaleri. Linenger and a Russian cosmonaut will make a spacewalk during his shift aboard the Mir, the fourth stay by a US astronaut.
Source: Flight International
