MOSCOW -- There's a new word for "success" this year in the Russian aerospace community: Proton.
Proton's builder, the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, is well on its way to setting a new launch record during a year in which the rocket orbited a major component of the International Space Station and further established itself as a reliable commercial launcher.
The first second of flight and climbing away from the Kazakhstan desert is seen in these views of a Proton launch by International Launch Services today at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
|
Thirteen Protons launched in a single year is the current record and with Tuesday's successful launch of the Sirius 2 radio satellite the scorecard for 2000 is at 10, with another four to six missions targeted to blast off before year's end.
The launch rate underscores that while the majority of Russian aerospace enterprises are striving to survive amidst economic chaos in Russia, Khrunichev is thriving and being held up as an example for other Russian organizations to follow, Khrunichev managers say."I believe that other Russian aerospace enterprises have a good reason to envy Khrunichev," Vladimir Gusev, Proton Chief Designer, told SPACE.com. "The Center has proved that it can be totally self-sufficient and successfully compete with the leading Western space hardware manufacturers, by using its own resources."
A key reason for Khrunichevs success is that it has managed to unite and coordinate all of the different designers, manufactuers and operators involved with the Proton rocket into a single enterprise, Gusev said.
In Russia, an "enterprise" is like a large corporation, such as Boeing, and has many divisions within its operating structure responsible for various components of the rocket. The big difference with U.S. companies is that Russian enterprises, like Khrunichev, are owned by and report to the government.
The Khrunichev Center was created by presidential decree on June 7, 1993. Initially it incorporated two major space enterprises: the Salyut design bureau and Khrunichev Machine Building Factory, now called the Rocket and Space Technologies Factory.
Later a third division was formed within the Center, a Factory for the Operation of Rocket-Space Hardware. Thanks to this separate operational unit - which is taking care of Proton launches - designing and manufacturing professionals are no longer distracted from their direct responsibilities by other duties.
Gusev has no doubts that Khrunichev will survive any economic and political developments in Russia.
"It is the backbone of the Russian space industry," Gusev said. "If Khrunichev is gone, so too will the Russian space program be gone. No government will ever let this happen."
Khrunichevs success has been enhanced by establishing a reputation for meetings its contractual obligations, not only to its clients but to its employees as well, Gusev said.
"Khrunichev is one of the few Russian enterprises which always pays salary to its employees on time," Gusev stressed.
~Khrunichev rescues Baikonur
Another key to both Khrunichev and Protons success is the total operational autonomy the enterprise has established at its launch site, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
For example, Gusev tells of how Kazakhs know when a commercial launch is about to take place, so they purposely cut off power to Baikonur, apparently in an attempt to extort money from Russia.
To prevent that trouble from hindering Protons operations, Khrunichev built a diesel power plant and house boilers to provide electricity and hot water to the launch site.
Khrunichev also repaired the Yubileiniy runway at Baikonur, which originally was built for the Soviet space shuttle Buran and currently is used by business and commercial aircraft that deliver specialists and guests to Baikonur.
Finally, the Center built the new Complex for the Assembly and Testing of space hardware, also known by the Russian acronym MIK. The building of MIK was initiated in the late 1970s by the Soviet military. The military, however, ran short of money and left Khruncihev to complete its construction using its own resources.
"The Center has invested tremendous amount of money into Baikonur and virtually rescued it," Gusev said.
Not without problems
Of course, while Khrunichev is enjoying an outstanding period now, it was only one year ago that problems with the Proton rocket threatened not only the enterprise's future, but also the U.S.-Russian partnership on the International Space Station when Proton-related trouble delayed launch of the all-important Zvezda service module.
"The year 1999 was full of failures which slowed the Centers activity down. A number of launches had to be postponed," said Gusev. "Khrunichev has successfully fixed the Proton problems which caused these failures, but they still introduced disturbances into the Centers manufacturing process."
Launch malfunctions weren't the only problem for Khrunichev. There have been and continue to be serious challenges in manufacturing the workhorse launch vehicle, in part because the booster relies on electronic parts that were last made during the 1960s.
Gusev explained that while trying to maintain an adequate supply of parts, the enterprise also is looking to replace the obsolete components with newer designs and plans to launch a new version of the rocket, known as Proton-KM, before the end of the year.
Proton-KM will be the same as the current Proton-K model in terms of the mechanical design, but the new rocket's electronics for controlling in-flight events and radioing telemetry to the ground will be significantly upgraded, making the booster more reliable and less expensive to produce, Gusev said.
~Engine troubles threaten future
Looking ahead to 2001, Gusev predicts that issues with Proton's main rocket engines could hinder the number of rockets produced and launched during the first year of the 21st century. The issues deal with the quality of engines already produced and concerns that new engines won't be manufactured as fast as they are needed.
Khrunichev still has rockets in its store which were manufactured in 1996 and 1997 under orders from the Russian Space Agency and the Ministry of Defense. The boosters were not used when both organizations could not find the required money to pay for the launches.
"A careful study of the documentation of the engines manufactured in 1996-98, which were installed in these rockets, has shown that they have some defects which may lead to their failure in flight," Gusev said, adding that the paperwork could not even prove that all required tests were performed.
"All of these engines will need to be examined and fixed, one way or another," Gusev said. "This is a rather time- and money-consuming procedure."
Complicating things is the fact that the number of engines available in inventory are nearly used up and Khrunichev managers believe their demand for new engines in 2001 will be greater than the supply the factory can produce.
In fact, Gusev said, if it were not for the fact that Khrunichev had a supply of older rockets on hand it would not be in a position this year to break a record for the number of Protons launched during a single year. Issues with the manufacture of engines already resulted in Khrunichev missing its production goals for 2000.
"We will have to spend approximately five years to complete flight tests of Proton-KM," Gusev said. "The first Proton-KM should lift off in October-November of this year. The mechanical hardware has already passed all the ground tests and the electronic hardware is currently undergoing especially vigorous tests, since it is a brand new part of Protons equipment."
Gusev said the eventual goal is to launch and manufacture 12 Proton rockets each year.
advertisement
