The Khrunichev Center is set to invest up to 1 billion rubles in Chemical Machinery Construction to ensure engine supplies.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Top Space Center Turns Down Foreign Deals
The Khrunichev Space Research and Production Center has turned down a $10 million contract to launch the ThEOS Thai satellite. The reason cited for the decision is shortage of rocket engines that the Khrunichev center buys from the Chemical Machinery Construction design office. The Khrunichev Center is going to put 1 billion rubles in expanding engine production at that company. Otherwise, they risk losing $400 million every year.
The Khrunichev Center has went out of a tender to launch the ThEOS Thai satellite due to the shortage of the required parts for producing the Rockot rocket, the center’s employee told Kommersant. The Briz-KM launch vehicle of the rocket has a S5.98 engine which is produced at the Isaev Chemical Machinery Construction design office outside Moscow. “The design office informed us that they are unable to provide the engine by the deadline,” Khrunichev’s director general Vladimir Nesterov told Kommersant on Monday. “Under the terms of the tender, the launch was due in 2007. Strict sanctions can be imposed for missing the deadline, that’s why we have decided to go out of the competition.”
Russian-Ukrainian Kosmotrans joint venture won the tender with the RS-20 rocket. The Khrunichev Center has lost some $10 million – the estimated price of one launch of a Rockot. The same reason forced the Khrunichev Center to put off the double launch of SMOS and Proba-2 European satellites from 2007 to 2008.
The Chemical Machinery Construction design office produces S5.98 engines for the Briz-KM launch vehicle of the Rockot rocket and Briz-M of the Proton-M launch vehicle. The company also produces a similar S5.92 engine for the Fregat launch vehicle of Soyuz-FG, Soyuz-2 and Zenit-2M rockets. Fregat is output at the Lavochkin Research and Production Center.
The Khrunichev Center is set to invest up to 1 billion rubles in Chemical Machinery Construction to ensure engine supplies. “We have the money – our annual production volume is $500 million,” Nesterov told Kommersant. “We can also take a loan at Vneshtorgbank or Sberbank. Otherwise, we will be losing contracts for 1.5 billion rubles [cost of one commercial launch of a Proton-M] because we don’t have a 25 million rubles-worth engine.” The Khrunichev Center is going to invest its own money in the design office after making it its affiliate. The merger was endorsed by the governmental commission on the defense industrial complex reform and development on October 18.
The design office declined to comment the situation. A source of Kommersant at Chemical Machinery Construction said that the company is now “able to produce no more than ten S5.92 and S5.98 engines a year.” However, it will produce only nine next year. One engine which was being kept for the next year was damaged during tests and cannot be restored. The source noted that the company would be able to boost the production only by two engines a year even with investments from the Khrunichev Center, producing 16 engines annually by 2009.
Plans on launching Proton, Rockot and Soyuz rockets in 2007 may be cut due to problems with the production of engines at the design office. The Khrunichev Center announced eight or nine launches of Proton-Ms and one Rockot next year. Meanwhile, the Lavochkin Research and Production Center plans to send at least seven rockets with Fregat launch vehicles – five Soyuz and two Zenit-2M rockets.
If Chemical Machinery Construction make only nine engines, the Khrunichev Center will fail to set off eight rockets worth $400 million in 2007. The source at the design office believes that “when the company becomes an affiliate of the Khrunichev Center, most engines will be produced for the head office, while the Lavochkin Center will be getting only what was left over.” Konstantin Pichkhadze, deputy director general of the Lavochkin Center, assured Kommersant, however, that they had enough engines, but he did not rule out a possible deficit in the future.
Konstantin Lantratov and Ivan Safronov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 24, 2006
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