RUSSIA-TECHNOLOGY: Space Research Goes for the Big Bucks

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Perera and Andrei Ivanov

MOSCOW, Jun 19 1996 (IPS) - The winner of next month’s runoff presidential election in Russia is expected to accelerate a space programme that is becoming increasingly commercial.

Head of the Russian Space Agency (RSA) Yuri Koptev is placing hopes for the programme on increased commercial activity, a need partly forced on the agency by existing realities.

Observers here expect there will be little change, regardless of who wins the runoff elections — incumbent Boris Yeltsin or his communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov. “State funding this year amounts to only a tenth of what it was in 1989 but we hope that more funds will be available from commercial activity,” says Koptev.

Last year the agency earned 350 million dollars from launching foreign satellites and from flights of foreign astronauts. Over half the space launches made in 1995 were with Russian boosters. More than 30 per cent of the satellites orbiting the earth are Russian.

“Broader international co-operation in this field is essential,” says Koptev. “Contacts with foreign firms do not damage our national interests.”

At the same time, the government is increasing its support for the space programme within the limits of what is possible in face of present economic difficulties. Additional funds have been allocated for research and for the purchase of equipment. The RSA has been allowed to use commercial bank loans.

In April the government established the Progress Space and Rocket Centre in Samara based on the Progress Design Bureau and Plant set up in 1957 which makes the Soyuz rockets and a range of satellites.

The plant also developed the huge Anergy rocket which was used to put the mothballed Buran space shuttle into orbit. It now plans to produce a smaller adapted version of this booster, the Anergy- M, and has also begun to develop a new booster known as the Angara. The Centre will still come under RSA umbrella but will also benefit directly from some central government funding.

Satellite launches from Russia’s various cosmodromes are set to increase significantly. Baikonur, now leased from Kazakhstan, is used for the larger Proton and Soyuz boosters and for manned flights.

Plesetsk in the Arctic is used increasingly for satellite launches. And the new spaceport, Svobodny, in the far east will soon be fully operational.

“Svobodny is to become the launch site for the heavy-duty Angara-class boosters of the future, ” says Colonel-General Vladimir Ivanov, commander of Russia’s Military Space Forces. “We are now preparing to launch Rokot and Start boosters, missiles adapted as part of the conversion programme, from this spaceport.”

He said the first would take off later this year putting into orbit the cartographic satellite Earthwatch, which is a part of the Russo-American space cooperation programme.

Russia also plans to launch four more new communications satellites by the end of 1997 as part of a programme begun last year to replace half of the 12 already in place which are now becoming obsolete. Two Gorintz satellites have already been put up — in October 1995 and last May — and a new design Ekspress satellite will be put up later this year.

Next year one Gorintz and two Ekspress satellites will be launched. Both are produced by the Priklsadnaya Mekhanika research and production association based in the formerly closed city of Krasnoyarsk-26 in Siberia. The association has built over 800 satellites since it was established 30 years ago, mostly military. But it is now part of the RSA and has converted its production to commercial satellites.

However Russia’s international impact has been limited, despite the fact that its boosters for satellite launches are cheaper and more reliable than any other. Russia has launched nearly 2,500 boosters of which 93 per cent were successful.

As a result Russian boosters incur lower insurance premiums than their competitors. But the United States and Europe have been concerned to protect their own positions.

In 1993 a Russian-American intergovernmental agreement permitted Russia to launch only eight American-made satellites up to 2000 and specified that its charges could not be more than 7.5 per cent below that of Western firms. This was amended last January with the launch quota increased to 16 with the cost of Proton booster services allowed to be 15 per cent lower than the market price.

This relaxation is expected to set a precedent for other international agreements, in particular with the EU.

But co-operative activity and joint ventures are becoming increasingly acceptable. One of the most successful is the Russian- American joint venture, Energia, between Lockheed of the United States and the Russian Khrunichev Centre which makes the Proton booster. More than 50 per cent of all the orders of the Khrunichev centre are now commercial.

This enables it to maintain its own production facilities and social infrastructure and provide about 100 design bureaus and plants in Russia and the CIS with work. In 1995, billions of dollars were allocated to them, helping retain 84,000 jobs. Since April 1993 all commercial contracts for the operation of the Proton booster rocket have been organised through Energia.

This led to the establishment a year ago of another joint venture, International Launch Services, which has set itself the aim of winning 50 per cent of all the orders of the international market for commercial launches by the year 2000.

But increased launches could cause problems for the RSA. Local authorities in Kazakhstan and Russia are now considering claiming compensation from the agency because of the debris — metal fragments and toxic rocket fuel — which falls to earth under the flight paths of rockets launched from Baikonur.

This has reportedly affected the health of the people living in the Ulagan district of Russia’s Altai Republic. And parts of norther Kazakhstan have been heavily contaminated with rocket fuel following the crash of a booster in May.

In this instance the Russian association Sovinformsputnik has to pay the US compensation for the American satellite the Soyuz rocket was carrying. Insurance cover with the Megaruss company was for 2.7 million dollars. Premiums will rise, however, it environmental damage also has to be taken into account.