Paris Air Show
Aerospace |
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Lockheed Martin/Khrunichev JV Describes Success Despite Slow Russian Launch Schedule
Paris (June 16, 1997) -- Officials for Lockheed Martin Corporation and
the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center reviewed their
International Launch Services (ILS) joint venture, first announced during
The partnership enjoyed a 100 percent mission success rate for the 15 launches over the last two years. However, the U.S.-based Atlas side carried most of the workload, accounting for 13 of the 15 launches. The first commercial Proton launch on the Russian side took place in April of 1996 with the second following just last month. Five more commercial Proton launches are scheduled for the 1997 year.
In a possible attempt to circumvent future launch delays in Russia, ILS
officials announced recent work on spacecraft processing facilities at the
Proton launch site in Baikonur. Once completed, the project will locate
all primary spacecraft processing, launch vehicle integration and personnel
facilities together in an area adjacent to the launch pad, reducing time
and With 15 new order for the Atlas alone in 1996, the company backlog of Atlas and Proton now exceeds $3 billion and includes over 49 future launch commitments through the year 2000. Representatives did not say how many of those launches will be for the Russian Proton. ILS plans to bump up launches to approximately 1.6 per month over the next 19 months to accommodate the surge in orders. Michael R. Wash, president of the Atlas division of ILS, also announced
that the Atlas IIAR is on schedule for development and should be ready to
launch late next year. Each of the previous three Atlas II vehicles currently
in use had successful debuts and a 100 percent operational success rate,
a traditional Wash insists the joint venture "plans to continue with
the Atlas IIAR." |
the 1995 Paris
Air Show. Deemed by the two companies as one of the most successful American
and Russian partnerships presently doing business in the international marketplace,
the program indeed appears to be living up to initial high expectations.
Questions concerning
possible delays from the Russian end of ILS first emerged two years ago.
While company officials would not point any fingers, they did acknowledge
some difficulty in establishing launch dates for the Russian Protons primarily
due to governmental restrictions on the number of launches allowable per
year. Regardless of the number of launches, Anotoly Kiselev, director general
of Khrunichev insists, "The successful launch of ASTRA 1F proved that
the Proton deserves its place in the front ranks of the world's commercial
launch vehicles. Clearly it is and will continue to be a strong competitor
in the international marketplace."
distances for
customer spacecraft launch operations. The new processing area is expected
to be completed by this fall and commissioned in January 1998 in time to
support Proton launch campaigns in the first quarter of that year.