The Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rocket will not make its maiden flight from its new French Guiana launch complex until 2010, according to the Italian Space Agency.
The delay from the fourth quarter this year to 2010, also confirmed by an ESA source, follows a previous setback from the end of 2008 to December 2009. The original target start date was 2007.
The Italian-led Vega rocket is also seeing a substantial delay from November this year to October 2010. While the first Vega and its new French Guiana launch complex are expected to be ready by year-end, on-site testing is expected to take up much of 2010.
Italian space agency commissioner Enrico Saggese tells Flight that conservative planning for the compatibility tests between Vega and its launch complex requires six months and that "next year we will have the two maiden flights of Vega and Soyuz. [For Vega the launch date] is roughly October 2010."
The Vega launch campaign will last 42 days instead of two to three weeks, Saggese explains. This is because ESA wants to be confident it can launch up to four Vega rockets a year. It can place 1,500kg (3,300lb) into a circular 700km (434 mile) orbit at a 90° inclination. Vega's first flight will launch a satellite with assorted experiments but Saggese says that had nothing to do with the delay.
The Soyuz 2-1a rocket is able to loft 2,700kg into geostationary transfer orbit from equitorial French Guiana compared to the 1,700kg it can achieve from its Baikonur, Kazakhstan launch site. The Soyuz 2-1a, and eventually the 2-1b version capable of 3,600kg to GTO, will operate from the launch complex in the French Guianan municipality of Sinnamary.
Source: Flight Daily News
