The western press has paid some minor notice this spring to the movement of a static test mock-up Buran orbiter from NPO Molniya Tushino plant to Gorky park in Moscow. The Kosmos-Zemlya company formed by NPO Molniya, the park, Kosmoflot and headed by Gherman Titov, is trying to make a buck by using the test article as the framework for a new space motif restaurant. Videokosmos is producing a video production of Earth views to be shown in simulated port holes as up to 60 patrons eat from a 100 varieties of space food for a cost of $70. Following a May 25, 1993 decision of the Council of Chief Designers the Buran project has been placed in mothballs. Orbiters at Baykonur are being placed in storage and LII and Air Force cosmonaut groups trained for Buran flights are waiting to hear of their reassignment. Meanwhile, ITAR-TASS announced the imminent launch of the Buran, on April fools day.
The collision of Mir and Soyuz TM-17 has been described as a glancing brush caused by a misconfiguration of the Soyuz joystick controllers. After undocking, Tsibliyev was tasked (after a NASA request) to photograph the new shuttle docking target attached to the Kristall module. The photos would aid training of NASA crews scheduled to dock to Mir in 1995. Shortly after undocking Tsibliyev discovered the translation controller had been inadvertently disabled. Without time to reconfigure the system he changed the attitude of the Soyuz to try avoid collision with the Kristall module but a glancing blow occurred. No damage was visible and the crewmen in Mir reported they did not feel any collision. More inspections are planned of the area of contact and EVAs were not ruled out should something significant be discovered.
After landing, Tsibliyev blamed ground support for rejecting the cosmonauts suggested procedure for maneuvering around Mir and imposed a different procedure. The task of photographing the target was only communicated to the cosmonauts shortly before undocking. Serebrov expected the cosmonauts to be blamed for the incident. NPO Energia is aware that such incidents must be avoided in the future owing to planning to continue use of Mir by both Russia and the NASA.
Meanwhile, Russia awaits the first significant payments of the promised $400 million for joint spaceflights from NASA. As of Feb. 1994, the only payments to Russia from NASA were for travel expenses incurred in planning trips to the USA. There is no money to change hands in exchange for the 1993 and 1994 flights of cosmonauts on shuttles or the first flight of astronauts to Mir. This reality makes US government touting of financial aid to Russia as result of manned spaceflight agreements as illusive as the international space station itself.
In other related events, the Yevpatoriya spaceflight control center has been reactivated for use with manned spaceflights after a financial fallout between the Ukraine and Russia in 1992.
Another hot story this spring has been the new cosmodrome. The Russian government has approved a feasibility study by the RSA, the Ministries of Economics, Finance, Defence, and State Committee for Defense Industry for development of Plesetsk, and establishing a launch complex at Svobodnyy near the Chinese border. Svobodnyy-18 was an SS-11 ICBM base built in 1968 and closed in late 1993 with the last crews leaving in Feb. 1994. The study is due to end in 1994.
Meanwhile a preliminary design for a Angara-24 booster to be launched from Svobodnyy is being preformed by NPO Energia, Khrunichev, and the Makeyev Design Bureau. One design calls for use of Zenit stages, and Energia components to make a Kerosene-Oxygen and Hydrogen-Oxygen two or three stage booster with a reusable first stage. Test launches are projected for 1998-99. In 1996, it is also planned for modified SS-19 ICBMs to be used to launch 1500 kg. satellites (the SS-19s are due to be destroyed by 2003 due to arms control agreements). The 1996 launches would occur from 2 restored ICBM silos with the possibility for opening 3 more and building 2 new pads for the Angara-24. 55 other silos have been destroyed in accordance to the Start-2 treaty and much of the land once occupied by the base will revert to civilian use. For now, efforts are limited to maintaining the current facilities with the aim at allowing conversion of a silo within 6 months for satellite launches.
The local population is voicing concerns about ecological effects of a launch site. The RSA is in favor of continued use of existing cosmodromes while the military favors reactivation of its former ICBM base to lessen the painful effects of military cutbacks. Press accounts in March went so far as to note opposition to the plan by some scientists, the militaries naming of a candidate for Chief of the cosmodrome, and denials from government officials that a new cosmodrome could be built at all even if it gained approval due to Russia's financial situation.
Agreements between Russian and Kazakstan about Baykonur still has not resolved problems at the Cosmodrome. The Russian intention to fund and administer everything within the border of the cosmodrome in return for leasing the site has brought dispute from Kazakstan officials. Kazakstans position was that baykonur should be partially leased by Russian and be controlled by an international corporation. Kazakstan meanwhile accounts payments due for the last 2 years of cosmodrome use and other military facilities in Kazakstan to be about $7 billion, which they recognize as unrealistic and they use the figure to illustrate that their position of demanding a joint administration of Baykonur is not being unreasonable. Muddying the waters is a Russian report that on Feb. 19, the US officially signed on to Kazakstans idea that the base be an international entity.
As these difficulties were being worked out the Russian government agreed that all Russian personnel working at the Cosmodrome to support space launches were to be awarded in addition to payment and benefits provided by employers other than the Russian government :
New development not absolutely needed for missions has also been differed due to the ownership dispute. On March 18, a general agreement was reached on leasing the base for 30 years and about the military use of the base, but talks continued on specifics of the plan. The general plan was signed on March 28 by Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev calling for the payment of $115 million. But, by April 13, Kazakstan charged that the sum was due monthly while the agreement is not clear about the period. Thus the monthly negotiations resumed to further clarify the situation.
Since the independence of Kazakstan, 21,000 people have left Leninsk. 28,000 military personnel remain to run the cosmodrome. Apartments which were once hard to get are now left abandoned. Many facilities are closed and food has become more scarce. Launch pads and other facilities are subject to random looting of copper cables, sheet metal roofing, etc... Officers now guard launch pads due to the lack of 2500 needed recruits. Oleg Soskovets, First Deputy Prime Minister, reported that social activities were nonexistent, heating was cut off, wages had not been paid in March and restoration needed to begin by April. The RSA reports that 34% of the scientists and specialists have left the traditional space industry by mid 1993.
At Plesetsk, funding for military launches is at a minium. Commercial launches are being invited to help continue funding for the facility. In Dec. 1993, the Cosmodrome defaulted on payments for power sources, auxiliary systems were shut down and shutdown of launch pad system was being contemplated. US missile test monitoring equipment has been installed at Plesetsk for verification of arms limitations treaties. In return, Russian has also installed equipment for the same purposes in the USA. Plesetsk is being sued for 1.2 Billion rubles for environmental damage near Koyda due to rocket launches. Representatives of the launch site agree to the environmental damage but claim the space sector is unable to pay the damages claimed. In response, an independent inquiry will reassess the damages.
Nearly forgotten but not dead yet, Australian Space Transportation Systems Ltd. is pursuing the idea of opening a spaceport in Papua New Guinea after its attempts to open a Cape York spaceport failed. Russian officials toured some possible sites. Proton boosters would be the preferred booster with a payload increased to 9000 Kg. to geostationary orbit from the new launch site near the equator. The total cost to build a cosmodrome is estimated at $1 Billion, so far $500,000 has been made available to do the study.
Meanwhile, NPO Energia has been allowed by Premier Chernomyrdin to pursue joint international development of a sea based launch vehicle in cooperation with the Ukraine. In 1993, 59 payloads were launched by Russia. 26 boosters launched 36 satellites from Plesetsk. 26 launches were by Soyuz variants and 60% of launches were for defense purposes.
Russian Space Agency Deputy General Director Yuri Milov announced that government funding for 4 unmanned projects would be continued while funding for 28 other proposed space probes and communications satellite projects would not be forthcoming. Among the four survivors are the Mars 94 and Mars 96 projects which are to be delayed, thus becoming Mars 96 and Mars 98 respectively. NPO Lavochkin has proposed using its propulsion section from the its Mars probes as an additional upper stage for the Soyuz and Proton family of boosters.
The first Gals communications satellite was launched on Jan. 20 after being delayed from the day before. The Gals represents a new generation in Russian communications satellites providing direct broadcast TV to dishes 60-90 cm. diameter.
Cooperation on Brazils plan for a 1995 launch are endangered by the the MCTR nonproliferation agreement. Chile has expressed interested in the possibility of sending someone to Mir. India has resolved its problems caused by the US Department of States stubborn insistence on application of MCTR rules to India's purchase of Hydrogen-Oxygen rocket design and production facilities originally developed by the Khimmash Design Bureau for the N1/L3M lunar landing program. As a result, India will now purchase a static and 4 flight units for $3 million each with first delivery in 1996.
Khrunichev in the form of the LKE joint venture has booked flights of Proton boosters up to the year 2000. Nine contracts totaling $600 million have been signed as of the beginning of 1994. The first Express capsule is due to be launched in August 1994 from Japan. A general agreement on cooperation was signed with China in March but no specifics were forthcoming. Talks began on a joint NASA-RSA mission to Pluto. Launch would be provided on a Proton and the NASA spacecraft would carry small Russian probes to closely approach Pluto and Charon. Another mission would also use a Proton booster to launch a NASA spacecraft with Russian sensors to study the sun after using a Jupiter fly-by.
Several military publications were closed in early 1994 including the well known and respected Aviatsiya I Kosmonavtika, the journal of the Russian Air Force. It was kind of a more technical version of the Smithsonians Air and Space magazine. It and four other armed forces journals are to be combined into Armeyskiy Sboronik in July 1994.
In May, it was announced that the cosmonaut contingent was to be reduced by about 50% to cut costs. The first cut were the older cosmonauts, mostly above age 50, who maintained their status by continuing to pass periodic physicals while they worked at jobs not necessarily related to any space program.
Thanks to Nicholas Johnson and Rex Hall for providing information for this article.
-- Dennis Newkirk (dennisn@comm.mot.com) Motorola, Land Mobile Products Sector Schaumburg, IL