Joint Observations

Arianespace and the Russians are busy building a new Soyuz launch-pad.... at Kourou in French Guiana. The construction of this launch pad will allow Arianespace, and probably also Starsem, the marketing company for Soyuz , to launch Soyuz rockets from a near-equatorial spaceport. Soyuz is an extremely reliable launcher and has been around in various guises since 1957. The Soyuz craft launched from Kourou will have an updated digital guidance system to provide even better injection accuracy and will use tropicalised components to cope with the hot and humid conditions encountered there. The enlarged 'ST' type launch shroud will allow bulky payloads to be handled and we've also discovered that a new version of the ASAP adaptor is being manufactured to fit the Soyuz launcher. This has the designation 'ASAP-S'. It's similar in concept to the system used to launch the AMSAT Microsats in the past and can accomodate four 200Kg mass satellites on the outer ring with a single 400Kg payload in the central chamber.

The new ST launch shroud for Soyuz is 4.11metres in diameter and 11.4 metres long. With Soyuz being able to fly out of Kourou (in addition to Plesetsk and Baikonur) plus the availability of the FREGAT upper stage, this allows a number of different orbit type to be available to planners.

Fregat is an autonomous re-startable upper stage that can handle Medium-Earth orbit, Sun-Synchronous orbit, Geostationary Transfer Orbit, and Earth Escape trajectories, in short, it's an extremely versatile upper stage. Who knows? Perhaps David (G0MRF) Bowman's suggestion of MEOSAT amateur radio birds *could* become a reality using SOYUZ.

With ESA advertising for astronauts, one must wonder where they will fly from and on which vehicle. They could certainly fly to the ISS from Baikonur on a Soyuz, but with the US shuttle about to be scrapped in the near future, they are unlikely to train for a flight on that vehicle. One other possibility of course might be manned launches from Kourou. Kourou is close to the Equator, so flights to the ISS would require a fuel- guzzling 'dog-leg' manoeuver to reach the inclination of the ISS, but the Europeans already *have* a large unmanned vehicle that could be outfitted as a small space station (the ATV), and they also have a launcher capable of lifting it into LEO so one wonders if that could become a part of their manned programme.

While the Americans are actively working on ARES, A.K.A. 'the stick' launcher for manned spaceflight, the Europeans *could* use Russian built Soyuz rockets carrying the Soyuz manned spacecraft from Kourou. This would be far cheaper than designing, building and 'man-rating' a launch system of their own. It's easier to launch to the ISS from Baikonur than from Kourou but who knows what will happen when the Shuttle retires.

The following items already appear in the Arianespace order book for Soyuz..

7 dedicated Soyuz launches (two from Baikonur, six from the Guiana Space Center).

In our book, two plus six equals eight, but maybe Arianespace use a 'different' accounting system :-)

The future looks interesting.