Russia helps Europe's space business

By EMMA VANDORE

KOUROU, French Guiana -- Joel Barre, the head of Europe's tropical spaceport in French Guiana, is relaxed about letting a former Cold War rival into the very heart of the Guiana Space Center's control center.

Unthinkable twenty years ago, Europe is letting Russians into its space program because they have something Europe needs: a tried and tested mid-range rocket launcher that just happens to be a veteran of the space race.

The Soyuz rocket is expected to make its debut at the Guiana launch site in the second half of the year.

The European Space Agency, whose budget is one third the size of NASA's, and its commercial arm Arianespace, are buying the updated Soviet-era technology because it offers the medium capacity launcher Europe lacks for a fraction of the price of developing its own.

Barre insisted the partnership is a "win-win" deal for Europe and Russia -- and one which doesn't undermine Europe's ambitions or threaten its interests.

"Today, Europe has autonomous access to space and the fact that Soyuz is coming here doesn't change that," Barre told The Associated Press as he looked down onto the center's Jupiter control room.

There, Russian engineers will sit next to Arianespace, and -- with the aid of an interpreter -- jointly decide whether Soyuz is ready for liftoff.

"We need the authority who developed the launcher because when there is a problem in real time .... we need them to be part of the deliberation and eventually the decision," he said.

By the end of the year, Barre hopes to have three types of rocket operational. Besides the Soyuz, which can carry around 3 metric tons, there is the Ariane 5, which can carry up to 10 metric tons and is gearing up for its 50th launch.

ESA is also developing a rocket with 1.5-ton capacity, Vega, due to enter service late this year.

Bogdan Udrea, a professor of aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said acquiring Soyuz "is a smart move because Europe wants to corner a segment of the market that they don't have right now."

"Soyuz is reliable and economical" with more than 1,700 manned and unmanned missions.

Europe has invested euro409 million ($572.56 million) building a Soyuz launch facility. That compares with the euro10 billion ($14 billion) cost of developing Europe's heavy-lift rocket Ariane 5 from scratch.

Space analyst James Oberg said developing a new launch vehicle of the same size as Soyuz would have cost "probably more than they could ever have recouped from commercial sales."

For the Russians, selling Soyuz to Europe means cash. Arianespace has already ordered 14 Soyuz rockets which it sells for around euro65 million-a-piece. The company won't say how much it pays for them.

"For Russian companies it is prestigious" to work in Guiana, said Sergey Ermolaev, one of the senior Russian managers being paid to oversee the setup in Kourou.

Around 200 Russian engineers from Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos and its various contractors are now based at the Hotel du Fleuve in Sinnamary, near Kourou.

To be sure, both sides have taken steps to protect their intellectual property.

Access is restricted and signs in Russian, French and stilted English such as "it is forbidden to use by not Russian personnel" litter the launch pad. The site -- 13 kilometers away from the Ariane 5 launch complex -- was also chosen to minimize risk.

"I'm sure that they are all keeping their eyes open," said Oberg.

"There are people who are sent there who were probably tasked to look for certain things," he said of the Russians. But he doesn't see a risk for Europe or for Russia.

With the U.S. shuttle fleet set to be grounded soon, NASA and other international partners will have to rely on Soyuz spacecraft alone to ferry their astronauts to the International Space Station and back.

"Once Russians get used to Western cash flow they tend to get addicted" and commercial reasoning prevails, said Oberg.

The Soyuz in Kourou will mostly carry commercial satellites -- the first scheduled being UK telecommunications company Avanti Communications Plc.'s HYLAS 2 -- but it will also put Europe's navigation system Galileo into space.

Barre said the EU insisted they could also be carried on Ariane 5 so that Europe is not dependent on Russian technology.

The Soyuz relationship dates back to 2003 when Russian and French government first agreed to bring it to Kourou.

In 1996, Europe -- through Arianespace and the space arm of Airbus' parent EADS -- and Russia joined forces in Starsem, a joint company created to provide Soyuz launch services at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The original launch date has been put back several times as constructors grappled with different weather conditions in tropical Guiana.

To adapt, the teams have made changes such as the addition of a special 52-meter frame which will be rolled out to the launch pad pre-liftoff to install the satellites in the European vertical tradition rather than the Soviet horizontal procedure.

But mostly the blue and yellow metal launch structure -- a sort of giant clasp designed to keep the Soviet style rocket with its bulbous head in place -- is unchanged.

Still, the schedule is tight for a July liftoff, and Oberg said he wouldn't be surprised if it gets pushed back even into next year.

"When we have a little worry or we are missing something to have to go back to Russia to get it which explains he delay," said Ergolaev. "Eventually we will get there."