Ukrainian space official optimistic on Brazilian project's commercial future
Posted on: Friday, 29 August 2003, 06:00 CDT
Excerpt from report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN
Kiev, 29 August: The Ukrainian-Brazilian project on launching the medium booster rocket Tsyklon-4 from the launch pad in Alcantara (Brazil) would not be loss-making irrespective of any developments on the market of space services over the next several years, the first deputy director-general of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, Valeriy Komarov, said at a news conference today. Komarov was speaking on results of a Ukrainian space industry delegation's visit to Brazil.
Komarov said the project on launches of the Ukrainian Tsyklon-4 rocket in Brazil can develop according to either an optmistic or a pessimistic scenario. If the situation developed according to the optimistic scenario and Tsyklon-4 were launched with commercial load six-seven times per year, the project would pay in three years. According to the pessimistic scenario, there would be three launches of Tsyklon-4 each year. In this case, the project would pay only after six-seven years, Komarov said.
Data on the development of space services for the next several years show that the project would not be loss-making, the deputy director said. According to research data, commercial loads launched into space are getting lighter. "At the moment, we do not witness launches of satellites weighing 10-12 tonnes, as was the case in the past," Komarov said. Now the time has come for small, compact space hardware. Tsyklon-4 is a medium-class rocket designed to launch such hardware into orbit. In the near future, when flight tests of the Ukrainian rocket are completed, about 80 per cent of the satellites manufactured around the world at that time would constitute the market for Tsyklon-4, Komarov said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the National Space Agency of Ukraine is planning to carry out commercial launches of the new rocket booster, Tsyklon-4, together with Brazil.
[Passage omitted: background]
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