The Rockot booster is back on track for its first demonstration launch following a launch-pad accident in December that destroyed the booster's payload shroud and damaged its Breeze K upper stage.
The rocket is now scheduled to launch May 15 from Russia's northern cosmodrome in Plesetsk. The launcher will carry two 1,520-pound (690-kilogram) dummy satellites into a 335-mile (540-kilometer) circular orbit.
The launch will inaugurate the new rocket and its renovated launch complex in Plesetsk for future commercial operations.
Following the accident, Eurockot scheduled a qualification flight for the end of March. Additional analysis of the booster pushed the launch date toward the end of April.
The new date will give launch personnel in Plesetsk time to celebrate Russia's May Day holiday.
The new Rockot booster only recently arrived in Plesetsk. The launcher damaged in the accident has been used for tests on the launch pad.
The Rockot launcher is based on a retired two-stage ballistic missile, the UR 100-NUTTKh, known to the West by its NATO classification as the SS 19. Since 1960, the Moscow-based Khrunichev Enterprise has manufactured hundreds of UR 100s. They were the most numerous missiles in the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet before their numbers were reduced under Russian-American arms control agreements.
Khrunichev converted the UR 100 missiles into commercial launchers by marrying the Breeze K upper stage to the booster, turning it into a two-stage vehicle.
To market Rockot internationally, Khrunichev entered into a joint venture called Eurockot with DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, which booked several commercial and scientific payloads.
This year, however, Eurockot lost a major customer with the collapse of the Iridium cellular phone venture. The Rockot launcher was expected to deliver a pair of Iridium satellites in the second half of this year. The plan had to be scrapped after Iridium went out of business.
"Iridium created a hole in our schedule, since there are no other commercial launches planned [for Rockot] until 2001," said Dr. Mark Kinnersley, Eurockot mission manager.
"We are considering one or two ideas, but so far GRACE is our next [commercial] payload, Kinnersley said." NASA has contracted with Eurockot to launch a pair of GRACE science satellites on a single Rockot launcher in June 2001.
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