More information on the Zenit from the Kyiv Post 11/27/98--note the reference to a March G* launch.
Final countdown for space industry
By Stefan Korshak
POST STAFF WRITER
Clouded with yellow smog and dotted with stagnant
factories, the gritty industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk was
once the heart of the Soviet Union's race with the United
States into space.
Today the city's massive white brick Yuzhmash complex -
Pivdenmash in Ukrainian, which isn't heard much in
Dnipropetrovsk - is one of the few Ukrainian companies left
still employing thousands in high-tech engineering and
manufacture.
But if Yuzhmash doesn't quickly turn around its flagship
product's reputation for low reliability, space technologies
could well be added to the long list of 21st-century
industries Ukraine should have had.
A Yuzhmash Zenit-2 rocket is scheduled to hurl a Russian
Cosmos telecommunications satellite into orbit from
Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome sometime in December.
If that mission flies as scripted, Ukrainian Space
Agency officials expect to be tossing satellites into orbit
by the covey before the century is out.
"As international communications moves toward low-level
satellite systems with global coverage, demand is high for
launch vehicles like Zenit," said Aleksandr Negoda, the
agency's general director. "We see great possibilities for
the Ukrainian space industry."
But if December's mission ends in a ball of fiery debris
as the last Zenit launch did on Sept. 9, Ukrainian rocketry
is likely going nowhere but down.
Aboard were a dozen Globalstar satellites worth some
$190 million, Ukraine's second commercial payload in its
history as an independent space power.
The timing could hardly have been worse.
Nowhere to go but up
The ill-fated mission was a minuscule piece of some of
the biggest action on the planet. The likes of Motorola and
DirecTV - never mind Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch - are
racing furiously to stuff the Earth's skies with between
1,700 and 2,500 low-orbit satellites by the end of the next
decade.
Globalstar is a $2.5 billion player aiming for a slice
of just one of the markets all those satellites will open
up: handheld satellite telephony. Globalstar once hoped to
be the first company to offer handheld mobile phones that
work equally well in remote parts of Siberia and the Amazon
rain forest as on the streets of Manhattan. The crash handed
that history-making achievement to Globalstar's competitor,
Iridium, a consortium led by Motorola.
An international consortium led by the U.S. company
Loral Space and Communications, Globalstar plans to fire 48
satellites into orbit by the end of 1999. It originally
planned to launch 36 of those satellites on Zenits by the
end of this year.
The first four Globalstar birds uneventfully achieved
orbit aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta rocket launched from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 24.
The Delta is a tried-and-true delivery system. Over the
years and dozens of launches, the U.S. rocket has gone
erratic - blown up in flight, fallen over on the pad, or
zoomed off on a tangent - roughly one shot in 20, which is
pretty good by most standards.
But the roughly $50 million that Loral paid to get those
four satellites in space was not the best deal going, some
industry analysts argue.
"The Delta-2 (6925 and 7925 configurations) has proved
reliable, but it is too small," Josh Hopkins, an industry
researcher, wrote in article posted on the Internet. "It is
not the most efficient way to throw significant weight into
space."
France's Ariane-4 and U.S. Martin-Marietta's Atlas-2a
are fairly comparable to the Delta in cost and capacity.
Ukraine's hulking, two-stage Zenit is not. A direct
descendant of the SS-18, a missile designed to fly several
tons of nuclear warheads from a Soviet silo to a capitalist
target, the Zenit can catapult two to three times the
tonnage out of the Earth's atmosphere as current versions of
Delta or Ariane.
Made of inexpensive Russian and Ukrainian components and
assembled by dirt-cheap Yuzhmash technicians in
Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine's rocket costs about half as much as
the Western competition.
The down side is reliability.
In 29 shots since 1985, Zenits have failed six times,
according to Ukrainian Space Agency officials. (Western
industry-watchers count two early test flights, putting the
tally at eight failures out of 31 launches.)
But at the end of the 20th century, all launch vehicles
remain unpredictable, the Zenit's designer points out.
"A failed launch is an unpleasant thing, but that is
part of doing business in space," said Yuri Smetanin of the
Yuzhnoye State Design Bureau. "It has been that way for
everyone: for us, the Chinese, the Americans. No technology
works perfectly all the time."
A bluff, craggy-faced man, Smetanin has designed and
built rockets for the last four decades. He and most experts
agree that the world's most reliable launch vehicle is the
U.S. space shuttle, which has worked 98 percent of the time.
But the space shuttle is expensive - prohibitively so
when it comes to launching satellites.
Rockets are a better choice for the thrifty satellite
launch shopper. American and French rockets function about
95 percent of the time, but they're not the cheapest on the
market.
That claim belongs to Zenit, Ukrainian Space Agency
officials say.
Which Globalstar understood perfectly well when it chose
Zenit to launch birds 5 through 16 two months ago. The
launch, which cost an estimated $32 million, would have set
a record for placing the largest number of satellites into
space on a single rocket.
Big Bang Theories
The Sept. 9 mission failed spectacularly, scattering
about $190 million worth of super-high-tech gear across the
Altai mountains of central Siberia.
The loss was insured, but industry analysts say the cost
of insuring a commercial Zenit-2 launch will be much dearer
as a result of the crash.
A Russian-Ukrainian commission investigating the
accident decided a computer glitch was the cause. The
Zenit's on-board computer failed to recognize a millisecond
shutdown of the rocket's primary and secondary
communications frequencies as temporary, the commission
found. The software concluded the Zenit was no longer
talking to ground control and, as programmed, cut the
engines.
Assigning blame was complicated. The computer was built
in Ukraine but some of its circuitry was Russian. About 40
percent of Zenit's parts are Ukrainian; 60 percent are
Russian. The rocket was assembled in Dnipropetrovsk.
The report studiously avoided finger-pointing, but
Smetanin felt the heat.
"Before that launch, no one knew Professor Smetanin was
the 'Father of the Zenit,'" Smetanin said. "But the day
after the launch, everyone knew."
For the 74-year-old scientist, on-the-job stress levels
have been rising for the last 18 months.
On May 20, 1997, a Zenit with a Russian Tselina-2
communications satellite aboard exploded shortly before
second-stage ignition.
But two months later, a Zenit flawlessly orbited six
birds for Israeli and European customers.
"That was an extremely important shot," Negoda said.
"That was our very first commercial mission, and it was
absolutely successful."
Unfortunately, next came the September 1998 Globalstar
launch, which wasn't.
Out of 15 launches since 1990, Zenits have failed six
times - twice the official 20 percent failure rate. Only one
of the last three missions was successful.
Yuzhmash specialists realize a successful December shot
is essential.
"Our reputation is on the line," Smetanin said. "It has
to work."
The U.S. aerospace giant Boeing will also be watching to
see how far the next Zenit gets.
The Seattle-based firm is the lead company in Sea
Launch, an ambitious $1.5 billion project that combines the
disciplines of rocketry and off-shore drilling.
Sea Launch plans to launch satellites from a souped-up
off-shore drilling rig set down in an equatorial region of
the Pacific Ocean. The location will take advantage of the
Earth's gravity field to slingshot heavier payloads into
orbit more economically than from land-based launch pads.
Norway's Kvaerner Shipping Company built the platform
and ships to carry the rockets and their payloads. Russia's
Energia and Ukraine's Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye design bureau
are jointly building the Zenit-3, a new three-stage vehicle
to be transported in segments and assembled at the platform.
Yuzhmash and the design bureau Yuzhnoye own 15 percent
of the venture. Boeing owns 40 percent, Kvaerner Maritime
owns 20 percent and Russia's Energia owns 25 percent. Hughes
Aerospace, PanAmSat and Loral Space Systems are all slotted
for multiple launches.
But delays have dogged the program. While Ukrainian and
Russian officials argued about customs duties on rocket
parts, the U.S. State Department slapped a $10 million fine
on Boeing for not following bureaucratic procedures meant to
insure that sensitive American rocket technologies are kept
secret. The first Sea Launch liftoff was pushed back from
October 1998 to March 1999.
Then, after the September Zenit-2 crash, Boeing
announced the first launch would be a test. News reports
said PanAmSat, which was to place its satellites on the
first Zenit-3, now wants to see a successful launch first.
"We will have an inert payload aboard," Negoda said.
"That will show customers what we can do."
Meanwhile, PanAmSat announced last month its next two
satellites will go with France's Ariane.
A Bigger Brother
Americans and Europeans aren't the only ones offering to
launch satellites for those wary of Ukrainian rockets.
Russia's gigantic Proton competes directly with Zenit,
in many ways outmatching it.
Now built in cooperation with America's Lockheed,
Protons have flown more often than any other booster on the
planet - 259 times since 1965. Over the years Protons have
glitched 15 percent of the time, a slightly better record
than the Zenit's.
As Russian and Ukrainian rocket scientists get paid
about the same and the rockets use many similar components,
the cost of a Proton satellite launch is roughly analogous
to that of a Zenit launch.
On June 18, 1997, a Proton successfully sent seven
Iridium satellites into orbit. Two more successful
Proton-Iridium launches followed on Sept. 14, 1997, and
April 7, 1998.
Not that Protons, or the men who launch them, are
perfect. In 1990 a forgotten rag led to a crash; in 1993
contaminated fuel brought down a rocket. On Dec. 24, 1997, a
Proton third-stage engine failed, leaving an AsiaSat
satellite in a loopy orbit.
But low cost, large payloads and 21 Iridium satellites
in orbit to its credit give Proton a firm position in the
satellite launch market.
For the Ukrainians to compete, they must demonstrate
that they can keep up with the Russians. To date, Ukraine
has not been able to do that.
Globalstar says it still plans to use Zenit next March
to launch 12 satellites, assuming the December launch goes
well. Globalstar's contract with Yuzhmash gives it a free
launch in compensation for the failed one in September.
In the meantime, Globalstar has moved forward planned
launches on Russian Soyuz rockets. The Soyuz is a smaller
rocket comparable to the Delta or Ariane but with a somewhat
lower price tag.
"Everyone will be watching Baikonur this December to see
what happens," Smetanin said. "Especially Globalstar."
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