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SATAN MISSILE BECOMES PEACEFUL AND PROFITABLE

RIA Novosti

MOSCOW. (Yuri Zaitsev, expert, Space Research Institute, for RIA Novosti.) The Russian Space Forces have started preparations for launching a Dnepr carrier rocket, a civilian version of the heavy R-36M2 Voyevoda intercontinental ballistic missile, or the SS-18 Satan in NATO classification. The launch is scheduled for the second quarter of this year. Fifteen craft from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the U.S. are to be orbited at once. Officials from the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) have said the launch date will be specified when the ground system, the carrier rocket and the space vehicles are ready.

A civilian R-36, converted into a Dnepr carrier rocket, was first launched in 1999 from the Baikonur space center. Three more launches followed and a total of 20 satellites were put into orbit.

"The use of decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missiles for orbiting all kinds of commercial and scientific payloads is a very profitable business on the global launch services market of," said Anatoly Perminov, Roskosmos chief. "We make double or even triple profits. We get rid of redundant missiles that have to be destroyed under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty. After a launch, we assess the state of rockets that remain on combat duty. And we receive money from our foreign customers for launching payloads into space, which allows us to maintain space production and the infrastructure at space centers."

Over 100 R-36 strategic missiles of various modifications and built in different years are on combat duty with the Strategic Missile Forces. They will remain in service at least until 2016, and until 2020 they may be used for launching spacecraft.

The Kosmotrans International Space Corporation runs the commercial use of Dnepr rockets. It comprises Russian and Ukrainian facilities and organizations that developed the R-36 system, and is responsible for control over the warranty and designers' supervision during its use.

Vladimir Andreyev, Kosmotrans general director, says the corporation has five ICBMs for conversion into carrier rockets, but if necessary, all combat missiles that are currently in service may be made into carrier rockets.

The rockets are 100% reliable, which is characteristic of all combat missile systems, and their payload capacity, which is enormous even by space standards - 9 metric tons for the basic low orbit and 3.7 tons for orbits at an altitude of 300km to 800km - means they can be used for launching virtually any space vehicles. Launch costs are not high; the rocket was developed in the Soviet era and its present market price is rather "relative." The first and second stages of the rocket and its engines are used without any modification. And only one of the control system units has been modernized in the third stage.

However, the problem is that Dnepr rockets are launched from the Baikonur space center, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan, despite the Kazakhstan authorities' great resistance. Under international treaties, they should have prohibited launches of environmentally dangerous rockets using liquid fuel from Baikonur in 2002. Kazakhstan has repeatedly demanded that it receive some of the profits from commercial launches in addition to the lease payments it receives for Baikonur.

In late December, the Strategic Missile Forces performed a training launch of the R-36M2 Voyevoda missile not from a specially equipped site at Baikonur, but directly from a region where a missile division is stationed near the city of Orenburg.

The launch area was equipped with additional measuring instruments allowing the rocket to be monitored during the preparations for launching and in the initial stage of the flight. The entire flight was controlled by the radars at the Space Forces test center and at three spaceports - Baikonur, Plesetsk and Svobodny. Accordingly, experts not only checked the combat readiness of the rocket, which had been on combat dutyfor 16 years, but also confirmed that commercial launches could take place where decommissioned rockets are based.

Launches near Orenburg also have other important merits. The rocket's flight trajectory runs over the unpopulated areas in Siberia. The engine of the first stage and the aluminum fuel tank with reserve fuel separate from the rocket and fall in the center of an ellipse with a radius of 30-50km in a waterlogged area of the Tyumen region. The second stage of the rocket falls in Kamchatka's Kura testing ground, which is specially designed for the purpose.

Until recently Dnepr rockets put light satellites into orbit, a few satellites in a single launch, which is true also about the upcoming launching. The idea now is to start launching large space vehicles up to 5.3 meters long and weighing two to three tons. To maintain a high level of reliability, the standard fairing, which has been tested many times, will remain unchanged.

The range of launch services carried out by Dneprs will be extended by bringing into play an autonomous space tug with one or two stages. This ship's first flight is scheduled for 2005, and the second one will be launched in 2007.

A company, Astrium, has signed agreements on using a Dnepr carrier rocket for launching the German Terra SAR-X space vehicle, along with France's National Space Research Center (CNES). A contract has also been signed with America's Bigelow Aerospace to launch six heavy satellites in 2006-2008 under a program to orbit various constructions and practice new technologies in orbit. Moreover, Kosmotrans has signed an agreement on cooperation with the German corporation SpaceTech GmbH in marketing the Dnepr carrier rockets on the global launch services market. Mr. Andreyev says the agreement does not only cover for marketing support but also technical cooperation in rocket development.

Experts estimate that there may be the demand for 16-18 Dnepr launches on the launch services market in 2005-2008.