ADELAIDE (Reuters) -- A U.S. aerospace company developing a re-usable satellite launcher hopes to be ready for takeoff from a remote launch site in the Australian outback by early 2002.
Kistler Aerospace Corp, which has been working since 1993 to develop cheaper technology for launching satellites, said it had finally won promises for the US$1 billion it needs to make three test launches.
''We've got the quantity of money needed to launch the first three birds (satellites)," Curt Johnston, Kistler flight operations director, told Reuters from the proposed launch site at Woomera, 295 miles (475 kilometers) north of Adelaide.
"We have located people willing to commit to that, now we're in negotiations with those people as to what the conditions of these committals are," he said.
The privately owned Kistler, which is headed by the former chief of NASA's Apollo program, George Mueller, expects its K-1 reusable launcher to be able to take satellites into space at a much lower cost than existing expendable vehicles.
Amid much fanfare, it signed an agreement in April 1998 with the Australian government to launch satellites from the former rocket range at Woomera, in South Australia.
Prime Minister John Howard said the project was expected to generate nearly A$3 billion (US$1.7 billion) over the next 12 years, with the possible launch of a A$100 million reusable satellite-bearing rocket every two weeks.
Difficulties in raising funds
Kistler had planned to begin tests by the end of 1998 with the first commercial launch in 1999.
But the test and launch timetable has been frustrated by difficulties in raising funds for the project.
The company pulled out of a planned public bond offering in 1998 due to unpredictable market conditions.
It said last year it had raised US$500 million from private sources in the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, but was still looking for about $400 million to enable liftoff.
Johnston said Kistler had won promises of additional investment of "around US$500 million," subject to formalities.
"Hopefully it will be confirmed and negotiated by December 1," he said. He declined to identify any investors.
Taiwan's China Development Industrial Bank and U.S. defense and aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp, which makes the B-2 stealth bomber, have previously announced backing for Kistler.
If the funds became available by next January, Johnston said he expected the first of three planned test flights to take place from Woomera within a year from then, "plus or minus two months."
Johnston said Kistler still planned to issue public shares once its satellite relauncher was at work.
"I don't know what the exact timing is, but there are a lot of people, a lot of individuals who want to invest in it because nobody will compete with us from an economy standpoint," he said.
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