BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan - Alexander Soldatienkov, the Russian space director who holds the world launch record with more than 1,000 Soyuz rockets since Sputnik (in 1957), believes Russian Soyuz rockets of the future have to be improved soon, and to be able to carry heavier payloads into space.
"The Soyuz technology from the 50s has long since proven itself," he says. "Now it has reached its limits. We can't stop here, we have to upgrade it in order to launch bigger and heavier western satellites and the French will have this exclusive commercial right."
A charismatic, legendary figure in space history, the 73-year-old Soldatienkov directed the successful launch of four U.S. Globalstar satellites last October 18 out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Starsem, the French-Russian commercial launch company that has been successfully commercializing the Soyuz rocket for the Western marketplace, has given an undisclosed amount of money to the Samara Space Center (TsSKB-Progress), which builds the Soyuz launcher, to accelerate the ongoing Russian upgrade of the veteran rocket.
"In an agreement with our partner Samara, we'll have an exclusive right to commercialize the more powerful Soyuz version called Soyuz/ST (Starsem) which will fly with an Ikar or Fregat upper stage in 2001," says Patrick Bonguet, vice president for Starsem operations.
Starsem, created in 1996, had an impressive start on the launch pad last February 9, with the inaugural Soyuz mission for Globalstar constellation. It was followed by four other fast-paced flights on March 15, April 15, September 22 and October 18. Each flight placed four satellites in orbit for the Globalstar low-orbit mobile-telephone constellation.
Employing a 40-person international team, Starsem has four partners: the Russian Space Agency (25%); the Samara company in Samara, Russia (25%); Aerospatiale in Paris (35%) and European Arianespace launch consortium. French and European partners invested mainly in cash while Russian participation was solely hardware.
In Baikonur's cosmodrome, isolated on the steppes of Kazakhstan, 35 French Starsem engineers are engaged in each effort with the much larger Russian teams from Samara and RKA. "This is a historical breakthrough to have Westerners so closely involved with Russians, who used to work in total secrecy.
It hasn't been easy. At the beginning there was tension on both sides," commented Jean-Claude Garreau, Starsem operations manager at Baikonur. "But after months of common efforts, mutual respect and real friendship have united us."
Initially, the French were perceived as "picky" and "fussy" by their Russian counterparts. The Russians were puzzled over why the French paid so much attention to minor details.
"Today I can say they work very well and if they have learned from us, we also learned from them. We improved some procedures and the way we write activity reports", admits Soldatienkov who started to work at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 1958.
Today, thanks to the robustness of the first Soviet pioneers, the Russian space program is still using the same ingenious and simple concepts employed in the Soyuz rocket used for Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin.
By November 2, the 1,640th Soyuz, also known as Semyorka rocket, will place four more Globalstars into orbit to complete the constellation.
Next year, the upgraded Soyuz-Fregat version will be able to carry more voluminous five-ton payloads (instead of 4.1 ton ones now) at an altitude of 450 km. A payload fairing, which protects the satellites at the top of the rocket, will use the worldwide industry standard of European Ariane 4 rockets. In 2001, the Soyuz/ST launcher with the Fregat upper stage will carry 5.5 tons into equatorial orbit.
"Then it could be the perfect tool for us to upgrade our Globalstar constellation," says John Klineberg, president of Space Systems Loral, Globalstar's main shareholder.
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