The Starsem consortium is close to finalising its contract to launch four Cluster science satellites for the European Space Agency.
Starsem is a consortium comprising Aerospatiale, Arianespace, the Russian Space Agency (RKA) and the Samara space centre to market the Russian Soyuz booster for commercial launches, mainly into low Earth orbit.
Jean Charles Vincent, vice president for Starsem's sales and marketing, says the company and ESA are evaluating the options of which version of the Soyuz booster to use for the job.
Two Soyuz launches in 2000 - each costing ESA $69million - will each carry two Cluster satellites which are replacing those lost in the Ariane 5 failure in June last year.
The Soyuz boosters will either be equipped with the Starsem-standard Russian Icare fourth stage or will be equipped with a stage developed in Europe, especially for the job of placing the Clusters into their unique deep space orbits to study the radiation from the Sun.
The Cluster contract will follow Starsem's first success of gaining a contract from Loral's Globalstar to launch three mobile communications satellites into separate orbital planes on each of three boosters.
Starsem is confident of receiving more contracts next year as a result of its intensive marketing efforts. Successful flights of the Globalstars in October, November and December 1998 will be an added credibility bonus.
Francois Calaque, Starsem's chairman and chief executive, says that by 2000, four types of booster will be available: Today's standard three-stage version - a veteran of more than 1,000 successful flights; the Soyuz with the Icare fourth stage; the similar Molniya rocket with its own fourth stage; and a version with the new high performance Fregat upper stage. These would be renamed the Rus 2 series.
Source: Flight Daily News
