When on an official visit to Brazil this coming October, President Leonid Kuchma is to sign an international treaty on long-term cooperation in using the Tsyklon (Cyclone)-4 carrier rocket at the Alcantara Launch Center. This document is expected to be ratified by Brazil’s Congress in December and thus come into force. Valery Komarov, first deputy general manager of the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU), believes it will be possible to launch the first Tsyklon-4 from the Brazilian site in December 2006.
Since Ukraine entered the international commercial space market in the late 1990s, it has proven the competitiveness of its launch vehicles. This country’s latest project — the Tsyklon-4 space rocket complex — is designed to meet the world market’s growing need for cheap light and middleweight launch vehicles. The pollution-free rocket will put into orbit satellites weighing under 1.8-tons (space telecommunication as well as earth remote sensing and exploration systems). Brazil’s favorable geographical position with its proximity to the equator makes it possible to boost the rocket’s launch power by a fourth with energy costs unchanged as well as to substantially broaden the range of orbital trajectories.
Last August the Brazilian Space Agency (BSA) hosted the second session of the joint task force to discuss the project’s financial and economic documents, including a memorandum of understanding between the NSAU and the BSA on joint long-term space projects scheduled to be signed in October also. To implement this project, a joint venture, Alcantara Cyclone Space, is to be set up, consisting of five Ukrainian enterprises (among them the Pivdenne Design Bureau, Pivdenmash Production Unit, and Khartron Company) and the Infraero Brazilian State Company. The venture is being established on a parity basis, with each side’s share being an estimated $90 million. The Brazilian side will be responsible for developing the ground- based infrastructure and the Ukrainian one for modernizing the Tsyklon-3 and developing a new launch vehicle on its basis. The NSAU’s first deputy head thinks the Tsyklon-4 is a safe project. Calculations show the project will pay off in six or seven years with three launches a year and as soon as in three years at six or seven annual launchings. Mr. Komarov says the latter option is more likely, which has also been proved by space market forecasts until 2015.
While the Ukrainian delegation was visiting Brazil, a disaster occurred at the Alcantara launching site: a VLS-1 rocket blew up shortly before launch, claiming 21 lives. That was a third failure to launch a Brazilian rocket. Brazil’s president Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva announced that, in spite of the disaster, the national space program will be further implemented. Brazilian Defense Minister Jose Viegas said in turn the accident would not cut short the Ukrainian-Brazilian talks on the utilization of the Alcantara site. “Tragedies have occurred in all countries that develop and put into operation space equipment. This will not mar our relationship,” Mr. Komarov said, noting that the two projects are being implemented independently of each other. Moreover, as long as not only Brazil is interested in space exploration, Mr. Komarov predicts the Tsyklon-4 project could later go outside the framework of bilateral cooperation.
