The launch of Ukraine’s first telecoms satellite Lybid faces a delay of half a year as the space industry starts to feel the fallout from Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Lybid had been due to fly this month but Canadian space…
The launch of Ukraine’s first telecoms satellite Lybid faces a delay of half a year as the space industry starts to feel the fallout from Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Lybid had been due to fly this month but Canadian space technology firm MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), which is building its payload, has declared force majeure on the project’s ground segment. It said this had been accepted by Ukraine’s space agency and the two are seeking ways to minimise the impact.
“The results of this evaluation will show the impact on the cost and the schedule of the programme,” said MDA.
“However, according to the preliminary estimate, the project is expected to be delayed approximately four to six months, resulting in a shift in revenue and contribution out of this fiscal year to the next year.”
Russia’s ISS-Reshetnev is building Lybid’s platform while the project is being financed through a ten-year US$254m loan from Canada’s export credit agency. That facility was secured in 2009 as the satellite was originally set to launch towards the end of 2011, before interference concerns with Eutelsat’s W4 and W7 birds helped cause its first delay.
An orbital deal in early 2012 that will see Lybid placed at 48E by Land Launch instead of 38.2E had cleared the way for its launch.
MDA added that the situation in Ukraine has had no impact on its communications satellite payload programme in Russia, where it partnered with ISS-Reshetnev in 2012 to jointly build geostationary satellites.
It said the Express-AM6 they are jointly building for Russian satellite operator RSCC is in the final integration process, while the Express-AM5 spacecraft they both worked on was launched in December.
NASA cuts ‘majority’ of Russian ties
However, political tensions arising from the Ukrainian crisis recently prompted US space agency NASA to halt the majority of its cooperation with Russia.
NASA said: “Given Russia’s ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation.”
The agency added, however, that it will still work with Russian counterpart Roscosmos to maintain safe operations at the International Space Station.
The US has been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets to launch astronauts to the ISS since its Space Shuttle programme was retired. It plans to move away from this dependence and switch to private domestic companies, but said current funding levels approved by Congress would only enable launches from US soil from 2017.
It is unclear what other programmes will be affected by NASA’s move away from Russia.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted that “apart from over the ISS we [don’t] cooperate with NASA anyway”.
Elsewhere in the US, Air Force Secretary Deborah James was recently cited saying she found its reliance on Russian engines for government launches “worrisome”.
She reportedly said the Air Force is set to complete a study into domestic alternatives by late May.
Mark Welsh, the Air Force’s chief of staff, was quoted telling a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defence subcommittee that, according to rough estimates, it will take around five years and US$1bn to build the engines in the US.
The vast majority of US government launches are carried out under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) programme by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Their Atlas V rockets use engines made by RD Amross, which is itself a JV between Russia’s NPO Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of the US.
A ULA spokeswoman said: “It is completely appropriate to review the status of supply of RD-180s in light of the current political tensions in Russia.
The EELV programme maintains a 2-3 year supply of RD-180 engines in the US to minimise potential supply disruptions, and has developed significant engineering and manufacturing capability which ultimately demonstrated the capability to co-produce the RD-180 domestically.
“Alternatively, under the mandate of assured access to space, critical national security payloads could be transferred to ULA’s Delta IV EELV family of launch vehicles in the event Atlas V launch vehicles became unavailable. In any contingency scenario, ULA will continue to provide assured access to space for all satellite constellations the EELV programme serves.”
