Tim Furniss/Spaceflight Correspondent
A SERIES OF SATELLITE launchers will have their debuts in 1996, but perhaps the most significant will come in April as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 5 has its maiden demonstration flight.
The Ariane 5 will have a second demonstration flight in mid-year, funded by ESA, and carrying the Intelsat 709 satellite. The vehicle will be handed over to operator Arianespace for its first fully commercial mission in October.
Arianespace hopes that the new booster, which is eventually destined, to replace the highly successful Ariane 4, will help the group retain its impressive recent market share figures. The Ariane 4's success is underlined by the record 12 flights planned for 1996.
Competition is getting ever fiercer, however, not least from the emergence of the US/Russian ILS International Launch Services organisation. ILS has a debut of its own for 1996, with the Russian Proton rocket due to have its first commercial launch, carrying the Astra 1F communications satellite. ILS also operates the Atlas, which has nine firm launches in 1996 (with the slots available in December).
Three other launchers will also have their debuts. The Japanese solid-propellant J1 booster is a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) rocket, combining the National Space Development Agency's H2 solid-rocket booster with a stage of the now-retired M3SII of the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Sciences. It will carry a prototype of the Hope space-plane, called the Hyflex.
Brazil may become the newest space nation in 1996, with the first launch of the Veiculo Lancador de Satellites (VLS), carrying a small satellite into LEO.
China's Long March 3B will also have its debut. This is the most powerful of China's commercial boosters, capable of placing 4,800kg into geostationary transfer orbit, putting it at about the size of the Ariane 44L.
On the manned space-flight scene, three more Shuttle Mir Missions (SMMs) are planned, each to deliver a NASA astronaut for a long-duration stay aboard the Russian Mir 1 space station. The station's final module, the Priroda, will be also added in March.
Another of the eight planned Shuttle missions in 1996, to be launched in February, will be used in a new attempt to deploy the Italian tethered satellite into space. The first attempt to deploy the satellite in mid-1992 ended in disappointment when the tether became snagged after only a few hundred metres.
Russia's manned-space-flight activity will include the final Mir 1 space-station module, the Priroda; four Progres M tankers; and three Soyuz TMS.
Source: Flight International
