Reuters
Wednesday June 4 8:06 PM EDT
World Bank backs controversial satellite project
By Rich Miller, Economics
Correspondent
WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuter) - The World Bank is putting its
financial muscle behind an innovative but controversial project
to launch satellites from sea combining U.S., Russian and
Ukrainian know-how, bank officials said Wednesday.
The multi-million dollar ``Sea Launch'' project will use a
converted and mobile oil drilling platform to launch the
satellites from a remote location in international waters about
1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of Hawaii.
``Sea Launch exemplifies a new, groundbreaking era in industrial
cooperation in which former Cold War enemies are now working
together in a non-military context to put commercial satellites
into orbit,'' World Bank Vice President Johannes Linn said.
At a meeting of the lending agency's board last week, France
objected to World Bank participation in the project because of
concern that some of the rocket technology involved might be used
for military purposes. But it was outvoted by the bank's other
member nations, including the United States, bank officials told
reporters.
Boeing Co. (BA), the Seattle-based aerospace company, has a 40
percent stake in the project. RSC Energia, Russia's leading
manufacturer of booster rockets for its manned space program, has
a 25 percent interest and Ukrainian rocket producer Yuzhnoye, a
15 percent stake. The remainder is held by Anglo-Norwegian
construction firm Kvaerner ASA.
Kvaerner is modifying the drilling rig to serve as a moveable,
self-propelled launch pad and is building a command ship that
will act as a floating rocket assembly plant and mission control
center.
The World Bank is not lending any money directly to the project.
Instead, it will be guaranteeing two separate $100 million
commercial bank loans to Energia and Yuzhnoye against political
risk, such as the imposition of new taxes or limits on foreign
currency transfers by their governments.
Linn defended the Bank's participation in the project, saying
that it would help create 30,000 high-paying, high-technology
jobs in Russia and Ukraine. He said the lending agency went to
``extarordinary lengths'' to ensure the technology involved was
not used for military purposes.
Ukraine's Yuzhnoye was one of the main producers of
intercontinental ballistic missiles for the former Soviet Union,
but no longer makes them, bank documents said. Energia has no
known links to the Russian military.
All launches will be licensed, regulated and monitored by the
U.S. government, the bank added.
Linn said that the project makes use of the competitive advantage
that Russia and Ukraine have in missile production and taps into
the rapidly growing launch market for satellites to provide
telecommunication links such as e-mail worldwide.
The Sea Launch Co. consortium plans to send the satellites into
geostationary orbit from the equator because that is the spot
where the earth's rotational speed is the strongest. ``You get a
sling shot effect,'' bank official Alfred Watkins said.
The company said it already has landed contracts for 18 launches.
The first launch is due in fall 1998.
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Edgar Zapata, NASA Kennedy Space Center
Shuttle Process Engineering Directorate, Fluid Systems Division