Russia To Dump Aussie Launch Center In Favor Of Kourou Deal

ROCKET SCIENCE

Will Russia Ignore Aussie Launch Center In Favor Of Kourou Deal

another paper rocket bites the dust?

Sydney - Jun 30, 2002
After decades of neglect and disinterest by the Australia government, private industry attempts to relaunch Australia's space industry look like coming to naught. This week's edition of the industry newspaper Space News reports that the Russian operators of the Soyuz rocket may pull out of a joint venture with Asia Pacific Space Center to work instead with ArianeSpace and its South American spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana.

The development is not surprising as ArianeSpace with the support of the European Space Agency and the European Union has brought major diplomatic and commercial pressure to convince the Russians that they would be better off working from an Atlantic spaceport than a greenfield site in the Indian Ocean on the Australia external territory of Christmas Island.

In tandem, ongoing publicity about Australia's increasingly harsh treatment of refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere has lent an unsavory flavor to the Christmas Island spaceport which will soon host a major offshore detention center for refugees.

Last year Australia's ruling government led by Prime Minister John Howard made Christmas Island a key battleground in its border control campaign to deny potential refugees the right to claim protection under Australia's obligations to the international treaty on refugees that Australia helped draft in the early 1950s.

The combination of so many negative factors and the hard commercial realities now facing the launch industry has ensured that ArianeSpace is using maximum business and political pressure to convince the Soyuz operators to look elsewhere. And specifically to team up with ArianeSpace to ensure that the market is not flooded with launch capacity at a time when demand is still falling.

In March, the Russian Government had approved co-development of the launch vehicle dubbed "Aurora" that would be operated and marketed by APSC.

APSC was formed as a consortium with its Russian partners that include the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, RSC Energia, Samara Central Specialized Design Bureau and Progress Plant ("TsSKB-Progress") and the Design Bureau of General Machine Building ("KBOM"), each of which has significant experience in producing and launching the most reliable and successful rockets into space.

The Aurora Rocket Space Complex design features an adaptation of the proven Soyuz launch system. Aurora launch vehicle designs include both three- and four-stage versions designed to enable delivery of payloads to LEO, GTO, and GEO from one launch facility.

Using the three-stage configuration, up to 12 metric tons could be delivered to low earth orbit, with inclinations ranging from 10 to 110 degrees. In its four-stage configuration, Aurora would be capable of delivering 4.5 metric tons of payload to geostationary transfer orbit at 11 degrees inclination and over 2 metric tons direct to geostationary orbit.

The Aurora design is built around the use of four strap-on liquid oxygen-kerosene boosters and a core stage using the NK-33 propulsion system. An enhanced variant of the BLOCK-E (Stage 3) powered by the RD-0124 engine, and a derivative of the Russian BLOCK-DM stage called Corvet (Upper Stage) complete the design.

The Corvet is a liquid oxygen-kerosene powered upper stage using one 11D58M engine manufactured by NPO Voronezh. The Corvet carries up to 10 mt of propellant and is capable of interfacing with known commercial satellite buses using Aurora's 4.1 meter external diameter payload faring.

The first commercial launch had been planned for the last quarter of 2003. However, these dates were always optimistic and whether the Australian government can now lobby the Russian government to honor it's original commitment remains to be seen.

SPACEMART

Australian Government To Fund New Indian Ocean Launch Center

Sydney - June 23, 2001
The Australian federal government has decided to back a new launch center to be built on the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the north east Indian Ocean. Funding of up to $US50 million will be provided for the project under new government initiatives aimed at boosting high technology exports.

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