Despite heavy snow inundating the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a commercial Rockot booster is expected to lift off on schedule from Russia's northern facility on Tuesday.
The launch, which should validate a renovated complex at Plesetsk for future commercial operations, is set for 4:27 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (08:27 GMT; 12:27 p.m. Moscow Time). The Rockot booster is slated to deliver two dummy satellites into low Earth orbit.
A representative of Eurockot Launch Services GmbH, the Russian-German joint venture marketing the Rockot vehicle, said that despite snowfall at the launch site, the commission overseeing the launch procedures foresaw no problem with launching the booster.
"We, of course, don't like this [weather], because we want to get some nice pictures," the Eurockot representative said, however, he added, the weather posed no constraints on the launch.
From Soviet Stiletto to commercial Rockot
The Rockot booster is a reincarnation of the UR 100-NU intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known to the West by its NATO classification as the SS 19, or Stiletto. Missiles of this type, capable of carrying up to six nuclear warheads, once were the most numerous in the Soviet ICBM fleet.
The first UR 100-NU missile was fired in 1977, and by mid-1980 some 360 of this version were deployed. In total -- several thousand different versions of the UR 100 family of missile were scattered across the U.S.S.R. in silos.
With the end of the Cold War, the Khrunichev Enterprise in Moscow, which used to manufacture the UR 100s, bought some of them back from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The missile maker added a Breeze third stage atop the two-stage ICBM and introduced a launch vehicle capable of lifting up to 2 tons of payload into low Earth orbit.
Renamed "Rockot," the redux booster completed successful suborbital flights on November 20, 1990 and December 20, 1991. On December 26, 1994, the booster delivered a small satellite into the orbit. All the shots took place from silo launch pads in Baikonur.
Khrunichev then entered into a joint venture called Eurockot with DaimlerChrysler, which marketed the vehicle around the world. The launch complex in Plesetsk previously used by the Russian military for the Cosmos 3-M rocket was renovated to accommodate Rockot for commercial missions. The launch pad will allow the rocket to access orbits with high inclinations toward the equator.
Khrunichev also considered launching Rockot boosters from a former missile-base-turned-cosmodrome in Svobodny in the Russian far east and even building a sea-based launch platform. Those plans were dropped in favor of Plesetsk. Eurockot still plans to refurbish test silos in Baikonur for future commercial launches.
Recent problems
Eurockot's road to its first demo launch has been littered with stumbling blocks. A launch date planned for September 1999 slipped to December due to technical problems. On December 22, days before its scheduled launch, the payload shroud on top of the booster suddenly jettisoned during an electrical test.
The investigation revealed that an improperly configured cable caused the accident, which pushed the program five months behind schedule.
Although Eurockot and Khrunichev representatives repeatedly said that the payload shroud was the only element of the launcher damaged in the December mishap, an entirely new booster will be used in tomorrow's launch. The rocket involved in the accident has been de-stacked and used as a test article in Plesetsk. Concern about the reliability of the launcher prompted the switch, Eurockot representatives said.
Meanwhile, Eurockot is looking for stable customers. The Iridium satellite phone company, Eurockot's first client, which planned to launch a payload on-board a Rockot booster later this year, has failed thus far to restructure itself financially after filing for bankruptcy. And Eurockot received word that its next scheduled payload, NASA's GRACE research satellite planned for launch in 2001, will not be delivered on time.
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