FLUG REVUE October 2006: Soyuz launches in Kourou prepared

October 2006

SOYUZ PREPARES FOR LAUNCHES FROM KOUROU

By Matthias Gründer

It is not so long ago since the idea would have been unthinkable: a Russian rocket which was developed over 50 years ago by the West's arch-enemy, the Soviet Union, as a strategic nuclear weapons platform and which carried the first sputnik and the first human into space, is set to transport satellites into space from French soil far from home. People talk about the good, old Soyuz, but actually it is not that old and has undergone continuous development and modernisation over the years. As of August 2006, 1,711 R-7 rockets had been launched in numerous different versions.

Soyuz launch in Kourou

The French soil to be used is once again in South America, the European space launch centre of Kourou in Guyana. The narrow habitable strip of coast of this country which is otherwise covered with jungle once served as a penal colony for dangerous criminals from French prisons. To this day tourists can visit see the remains of the prison cells on Devil's Island, the most famous of the three Îles du Salut, which are an hour away from the coast by boat.

The market forecasters were seriously wrong

But, to return to the present, to the ultra-modern rocket launchpad situated between dense jungle and white beach: Why will the Russian rocket be lifting off from the Equator in the future? The rationale behind stems from forecasts regarding the future of commercial satellite transport that were made some time ago and turned out to be way off the mark. At the beginning of the 1990s, the prevalent view in expert circles was that future communication, meteorological and other satellites with practical applications would become ever bigger and heavier and have longer service lives. The logical result of this was that industry concentrated on developing heavy-duty launch vehicles capable of transporting several of the predicted satellite constellations for mobile radio communication to low orbit from a single launch. Up to 600 of these small satellites should cover the entire world.

As Europe's world market leader in commercial launches, Arianespace was forced to gear itself up to these predictions. The space industry concentrated on accelerated development of Ariane 5 and allowed the tried and tested Ariane 4 to be phased out. Parallel assembly lines for two families of rockets across Europe would not be commercially viable, so the argument went. The launch service provider itself had no influence over this development.

However, the predicted satellite constellations floundered before they had even been fully developed, as terrestrial systems were a lot cheaper to set up and it soon became clear that the remaining satellites would not be the expected gigantic space platforms. On the contrary, the trend in practical application satellites has increasingly been towards miniaturisation and deployment at low orbit. Moreover, such spacecraft are easier to dispose of and can be replaced more quickly and cheaper, should they fail.
Good advice now became expensive, as Ariane 4 was irrevocably retired from the market, resulting in painful cutbacks in European industry and the loss of numerous jobs. Yet it would not have been financially viable to resuscitate the launcher family, even though this transport capacity was now urgently needed. One solution was to step up cooperation with the joint venture company Starsem, which had been founded in 1996 and is jointly owned by EADS Space, Arianespace, rocket manufacturer Samara Space Center and the Russian space agency.

This company, named Soyuz, markets the R-7 for commercial purposes and offers international customers the proven launch service which they have experienced at the hands of Arianespace. This meant that the Soyuz would now be able to at least partially fill the gap caused by the demise of Ariane 4. But one significant disadvantage remained: the greater terrestrial latitude of the Baikonur cosmodrome compared with Kourou, close to the Equator, meant that the Soyuz had a lower payload capacity.

Rockets have more energy at the Equator

From a trajectory point of view, launchpads close to the Equator have the advantage of being able to utilise the greater rotational speed of the Earth here, with the result that, if performance is held constant, a given launch vehicle can carry a bigger payload if it takes off from Kourou as opposed to Baikonur. It made obvious sense that the Soyuz should have a launchpad of its own built in Kourou, but, as is so often the case, funding was a stumbling block. The Russians were also keen to launch their rocket from the Tropics and to profit from the potential revenue, but they were not in a position to make a financial contribution towards the construction costs. Negotiations went on and on, and it was only after the French government put up a security of Euro121 million at the end of 2004 that the construction work got the green light. The total cost of the launch facility is currently stated at €344 million, which is to come from ESA resources.

The Soyuz 2.1, revamped for the Tropics, will have a digital control system, modified telemetry and a bigger payload fairing. Two versions of it will be deployed in Kourou: the already proven Soyuz 2.1a which has a capacity of 2.7 tonnes (about half a tonne more than in Baikonur) for the geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), while the more powerful Soyuz 2.1b will be able to carry three tonnes into GTO, rising to 4.45 tonnes in a 600km sun-synchronous orbit. The rocket will be assembled lying down, with the satellites installed after it has been raised to the vertical position.

Meanwhile it has been contractually agreed that the Russians do not have to contribute any money to the joint project, but they will supply some hardware. In this way they will not only be supplying the rockets for the joint venture but they will also construct and assemble the launch facility. The components will be transported from St Petersburg to Kourou on the two ships which Arianespace currently uses for the Ariane 5. Meanwhile, construction work on the edge of the jungle is already at an advanced stage, and there is even a launch customer for the first launch: the Australian telecommunications provider Optus plans to entrust its Optus D2 communications satellite to the Russian vehicle. Four launches should be sufficient for the venture to break even.

From page 80 of FLUG REVUE 10/2006

Last updated 15 September 2006

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