- MOSCOW (UPI)-- Russia's space
agency will not give up participation in the International Space Station
despite funding hardships that have brought its chief spacecraft manufacturer
to the brink of financial collapse, a space official told United Press
International Friday.
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- "Certainly, we do not support the idea (of abandoning
the ISS program)," a spokesman for Rosaviakosmos said in a telephone
interview. "The initiative is not ours, we have learned about it from
the papers," he added.
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- The report of Russia's intention to walk out on the project
appeared this week in Trud, a Moscow daily newspaper, and immediately sparked
speculation about the future of the Russian commitment to the ISS.
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- Trud's front page article, published under the headline
"The Cosmic Blind Alley," told of dire prospects of the nation's
major spacecraft maker, RKK Energiya, which has had trouble obtaining funds
to finance construction of cargo and crew ships on schedule as promised
the ISS management.
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- "In 1998, Russia took up the obligation to build
six Progress cargo ships and two piloted Soyuz spacecraft each year,"
RKK Energiya's deputy general constructor Valery Ryumin told the paper.
According to the official, the firm struggled to sustain that rate over
the past two years, building five cargo ships in 2001 and three this year.
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- "Next year, we'll be able to manufacture only two
cargo modules in order to lift the ISS' orbit and prevent it from falling
down to Earth," said Ryumin, who also is director of Russia's branch
of the ISS project.
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- The situation is even worse with manned craft, Ryumin
added, with Energiya being able to build only one per year.
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- Currently, the construction of a second piloted Soyuz
has been suspended due to lack of funds.
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- "If we don't resume construction today, there'll
be nothing to fly in 2004," Ryumin said, explaining it takes two years
to build one space ship. That is why Energiya contemplates what it calls
a "temporary suspension" of its ISS program.
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- Calling the situation "desperate," Ryumin added
he had penned a letter to NASA officials explaining Energiya's woes.
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- Reacting to Russian news reports, NASA said Friday it
was unaware of any official proceedings heralding Moscow's withdrawal from
the project.
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- "NASA has not received any indication from Rosaviakosmos
that Russia will not be able to meet its commitment under the International
Space Station agreements," the agency said in a brief statement.
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- The Rosaviakosmos spokesman told UPI that Energiya was
"acting on its own, by-passing us." He added Energiya's woes
were understandable because it a number of its subcontractors had halted
supplies of parts and components for the craft after the financing ran
out.
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- "Once the chain of technological operations is broken,
the construction halts," the spokesman said.
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- The 1.2-billion-ruble ($38.1 million) planned budgetary
outlays to Energiya in 2003 will hardly suffice to cover the firm's unpaid
bank loans and other debts, estimated at 1 billion rubles ($31.7 million),
Ryumin argued in his interview with Trud.
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- Russia's space budget indeed looks paltry if compared
with U.S. funding, the paper added. According to Trud, Moscow would need
at least $240 million per year to support its commitment to the ISS. Even
that amount is only a tiny fraction of $1.5 billion that Washington intends
to spend on the same program in 2003, Trud reported.
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- "This problem has been going on for years. We haven't
had sufficient financing since the collapse of the Soviet Union,"
the Rosaviakosmos spokesman said. "However, we hope that the (Russian)
government will become more receptive to our problems," securing the
continuation of Moscow's commitment to the ISS project.
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- In recent years, Rosaviakomsos has launched commercial
flights, taking aboard space tourists in an effort to provide additional
funds to finance Russia's space program. Billed at $20 million per flight,
the campaign has so far brought $40 million after U.S. businessman Dennis
Tito and South African Internet mogul Mark Shuttleworth dished out the
money to make historic trips aboard Soyuz spacecraft.
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- However, a third and most publicized trip by U.S. pop
music star Lance Bass recently fell through after Bass' sponsors failed
to meet the payment deadline.
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- Nevertheless, Rosaviakosmos is exploring options to find
a new candidate to fill the vacant seat on the Soyuz trip, scheduled for
Oct. 26.
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- On Thursday, RIA Novosti news agency reported Russian
businessman Sergei Polonsky may fly instead of Bass after a series of medical
examinations revealed he was fit to enter training at the Star City training
center near Moscow.
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- Polonsky runs a construction company as well as the Atlas
Aerospace company, which has operated cosmonaut-style training programs
for space enthusiasts since 1999, the report said.
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