[FPSPACE] Russians disappoint South Africa once too much

[Baris Gencay]

Hello Keith,

Thank you for the update. If South Africa has this problem, it doesn't seem 
reasonable to negotiate with other Russian Launch Contractors. So, the 
leftover is Chinese, Indian and US Companies. Obviously, Sumbandilasat may 
not fly with Chinese and Indian LVs with some obvious reasons. So there is 
only US SpaceX or European Vega left. Vega will make the maiden flight in 
December 2008. SpaceX is still postponing the Razaksat Launch. They 
announced yesterday that the launch will take place in Q3 2008, if it will 
not re-re-re-re scheduled again.

So who is left? Nobody!

I really wonder how will they manage? South Koreans will try KSLV-1 in 2008 
but they are not sure about commercialization. Developing countries in space 
tech will have huge difficulties in launching their satellite because of 
many non-linear problems...

Baris








----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith Gottschalk" <kgottschalk at uwc.ac.za>
To: "Friends & Partners FPSPACE" <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 2:34 PM
Subject: [FPSPACE] Russians disappoint South Africa once too much


>   A sad tale.
>
>   A few years back, South Africa's Department of Science & Technology
> invited tenders to launch a micro-sat made by a university spin-off. It
> got a few offers for piggy-back lifts with other customers' launches.
>
>    But only the Russian  military offered a dedicated launch. A
> sub-launched missile to whatever orbital inclination & altitude South
> Africa wanted. This was using the same type of missile from the same sub
> that failed in trying to orbit the Solar Sail for the [U.S.] Planetary
> Society led by Bruce Murray, I think. SA's DST signed up for that.
>
>    The original launch date was set for 16 December 2006. A school
> kiddies competition baptized the microsat Sumbandila, meaning "Lead the
> Way" in Venda, one of our eleven official languages, also spoken across
> the border in southern Zimbabwe. Then, the SA side postponed the launch
> from Dec 2006 until April 2007, so as to upgrade an experimental remote
> sensing system into a fully operational system.
>
>      But after that, the relevant Russian authority kept postponing &
> postponing the launch for "administrative requirements". After TEN
> MONTHS of further postponements, last week the Russian authority
> "withdrew authorization to launch" seven days before the most recently
> re-re-re-scheduled lift-off.
>
>      This was the last straw for South Africa. The SA DST has now
> ended the arrangements with the Russians. A Moscow friend emailed me
> that RosaviaKosmos told the media that the agreement was not with them,
> but with a Russian military authority.
>
>     We can only speculate what went wrong. After the contract was
> originally signed, oil and gas prices have roughly quadrupled, so the
> Russian armed forces budgets are no longer squeezed. Therefore they no
> longer care so much about earning a bit extra off-book? Neither the U.S.
> Planetary Society, nor South Africa's DST, will again hire a Russian
> missile-firing sub.
>
>     South Africa's DST is now negotiating with other countries and
> companies. It's back to the piggy-back seat under the payload faring, &
> dropping off our microsat into whatever orbit the main customer wants.
> There is apparently more than one opportunity during what's left of
> 2008, where a SLV has a 100 kgs of payload to spare. Otherwise it'll now
> be 2009...
>
> Keith
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


> All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer
> http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/public/portal_services/disclaimer.htm
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


> _______________________________________________
> FPSPACE mailing list
> FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
>