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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: July 10, 2014 1:27:48 PM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – July 10, 2014
Here is PAO's version. Great seeing some many of you that were able to join us for lunch today. Always a joy to see you and catch up with what has been happening.Thanks to Jon and Janice Hall for joining us today too and first time Mavis Brandt, Sylvia Buchta, Carolyn Lisenbee and Donna Mays....sorry if I missed mentioning other first timers…..But thank you all for joining us in fellowship today.NASA and Human Spaceflight NewsThursday – July 10, 2014INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: One day behind schedule, Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket and the "SS Janice Voss" Cygnus cargo craft began the rollout to Launch Pad 0A at the Wallops Flight Facility, Va., at appx. 3am CT today and is now at the pad, being prepared for launch on Saturday to the ISS. Loaded with almost 3,300 pounds of supplies and experiments, Cygnus is scheduled to launch Saturday at 12:14 p.m. NASA TV coverage Saturday will begin at 11:30 a.m.
HEADLINES AND LEADSAmerica's most influential - and controversial - space lawmaker could be Alabama's Sen. Richard ShelbyLee Roop - Huntsville (AL) TimesWho's the member of Congress driving the discussion about America's space program this summer? A good argument could be made that it's U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa).After 45 Years: Space Race a Thing of the PastGeorge Putic – Voice of AmericaForty-five years ago, two U.S. astronauts became the first humans to step on the moon, the remarkable culmination of a fierce competition in space technology between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.Orbital's Second Paid Cargo Run to Station Slips to July 12Dan Leone – Space NewsOrbital Sciences Corp. has delayed by one day, to July 12, the launch of its second cargo resupply mission to the international space station after severe thunderstorms the night of July 8 prevented the company from rolling its Antares rocket out to its launch pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, the following morning, Orbital said in a July 9 press release.ULA Wraps of Design Review of Boeing Spacecraft Launch Pad; Ellen Plese CommentsAndy Reed – ExecutiveBizUnited Launch Alliance has completed the critical design review phase of work to evaluate a launch site in Florida that Boeing's Crew Space Transportation -100 spacecraft will launch from.SpaceX gets FAA approval to build spaceport in South TexasEric Berger – Houston ChronicleThe rocket company SpaceX on Wednesday received final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to construct a spaceport in South Texas.Astronauts See Typhoon Neoguri's Power from SpaceElizabeth Howell - Space.comAstronauts in space had a front-row seat this week to watch the Typhoon Neoguri transform into a powerful a super typhoon that dominated the Pacific Ocean, then downgrade back into a typical typhoon. The space travelers capture stunning images of that stormy drama from their home aboard the International Space Station.Bigelow Aerospace Begins Hiring Round by Adding Former Astronauts Ham, ZamkaDan Leone – Space NewsBigelow Aerospace has hired former NASA astronauts Kenneth Ham and George Zamka to form the cornerstone of the private astronaut corps the North Las Vegas, Nevada, company will need to maintain and operate the inflatable space habitats it plans to launch some time after 2017.Space Probe Might Lack Nitrogen to Push It HomeKenneth Chang – New York TimesA do-it-yourself team of engineers trying to lasso an aged but operational NASA space probe may have run into an insurmountable obstacle: Tanks on the spacecraft that were once full of nitrogen gas, needed to fire the thrusters, appear to be empty.Scott Texter: ATK, Northrop Test NASA Webb Telescope Backplane SystemMary-Louise Hoffman – ExecutiveBizATK and Northrop Grumman have jointly tested a backplane assembly for NASA's James Webb Telescope to determine if the platform could withstand the rigors of space travel and carry heavy payload.Senate committees planning joint hearing on launch issuesJeff Foust – Space PoliticsA rare joint hearing of subcommittees of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Commerce Committee will examine American reliance on a Russian-manufactured rocket engine and other space access issues next week. The hearing, by Armed Services' strategic forces subcommittee and Commerce's space subcommittee, is scheduled for Wednesday, July 16, at 9:30 am. The Commerce Committee titled the hearing "Options for Assuring Domestic Space Access" and the Armed Services Committee calls it "Testimony on Assured Access to Space"; it will take place in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.Russia test launches first new space rocket since Soviet eraAlissa de Carbonnel - ReutersRussia launched its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era from the northern military space port of Plesetsk on Wednesday, aiming to break its reliance on foreign suppliers as well as the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.COMPLETE STORIESAmerica's most influential - and controversial - space lawmaker could be Alabama's Sen. Richard ShelbyLee Roop - Huntsville (AL) TimesWho's the member of Congress driving the discussion about America's space program this summer? A good argument could be made that it's U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa).A technical provision Shelby inserted in the NASA 2015 funding bill is drawing widespread discussion and, in some cases, opposition from other lawmakers, editorial writers and others in America's space community. The Shelby provision is what you need to understand to know what's driving the debate about the space program this summer.Shelby wants the three companies receiving NASA appropriations to develop space taxis to the International Space Station to submit "certified cost and pricing data" on their use of federal dollars. Those companies now are SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Boeing, but their number could be trimmed later this year.Shelby's rule would basically implement so-called "cost-plus" budgeting instead of the flat appropriations NASA has been making to its commercial partners. Under cost-plus contracts, companies bill NASA for what each phase of a project costs plus a percentage for profit. The method is common in government contracting, but it means time and overhead for the project and more bureaucracy for the contractor. Under flat appropriations, the company keeps the profit if it can develop its project for less than the government has appropriated.Shelby says he just wants to make sure the money NASA gives the three competing space companies is actually going to develop the commercial rockets and spaceships America needs to take American astronauts to the space station. But the commercial space industry sees the accounting requirements as a hassle that will actually drive up costs and slow down development.On June 30, Space News, a leading space website, published an op-ed saying America doesn't have time for typical business procedures when it is racing to get its crews off Russian rockets.The Houston Chronicle weighed in this month, too, in an editorial headlined "Rockets' red tape" that says Shelby's rule "threatens to kill the goose that could lay the golden egg." By that, the paper means commercial space development. The Houston paper says Shelby is protecting the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.NASA and the White House don't like Shelby's rule, either, but the requirement is in the law as it came out of committee and awaits action on the Senate floor. To get rid of it, House and Senate negotiators will have to compromise after the budget measure passes the Senate and goes for reconciliation with the House budget.After 45 Years: Space Race a Thing of the PastGeorge Putic – Voice of AmericaForty-five years ago, two U.S. astronauts became the first humans to step on the moon, the remarkable culmination of a fierce competition in space technology between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.Beginning in the U.S.-Soviet Cold War of the 1950s, the space race was as much about politics as science, says former Russian cosmonaut and deputy director of the Memorial Museum of Cosmonauts, Alexander Laveykin."There was a big competition between us and America: who will launch the first space satellite? It turned out, we were the first ones," said Laveykin.That succesful launch of man-made satellite, Sputnik 1 — a 58 centimeter metal ball with four antennae that circled the globe and transmitted a simple signal — was a bitter pill for the American public to swallow.Less than five months later, in January 1958, the U.S. launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, which discovered the Van Allen radiation belt.But the Soviets pulled ahead again in April 1961, when the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took a single swing around the planet, and succesfully returned to a hero's welcome.One month later, the first American astronaut Alan Shepherd reached suborbital altitude and parachuted back to earth."On the periscope, what a beautiful view," said Shepherd from far above the earth. "Cloud cover over Florida, three to four tenths up the eastern coast, obscures up through Hatteras.... I'm getting ready for impact."Growing public and political pressure prompted then-President John Kennedy to set America's sights higher: to land on the moon, says National Air and Space Museum curator Kathleen Lewis."On the United States side, I think there is a bit of hubris that we can do anything better," said Lewis.Before the decade was over, on July 20, 1969, American Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the moon.In the years that followed, the space race slowed and moved toward cooperation when in 1975 Washington and Moscow conducted the first manned rendezvous in space.In time, the rivalry would fizzle, due to the task of building the International Space Station, the demise of Communism, and NASA's decision to retire its shuttle fleet.According to Kathleen Lewis of National Air and Space Museum, the current earth-bound, geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and Russia does not seem to adversely impact bilateral cooperation in space."You don't want to be arguing politics when you're up in a tin can 200-and-some miles [325 km] above Earth," she said. "You have nowhere to go, so you've got to focus on things that you can agree on and avoid the things that you might have disagreements on."At the moment, the two space agencies do not have plans for greater cooperation, but their competitive space race is definitely a thing of the past.Orbital's Second Paid Cargo Run to Station Slips to July 12Dan Leone – Space NewsOrbital Sciences Corp. has delayed by one day, to July 12, the launch of its second cargo resupply mission to the international space station after severe thunderstorms the night of July 8 prevented the company from rolling its Antares rocket out to its launch pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, the following morning, Orbital said in a July 9 press release.Despite the one-day slip, which Orbital attributed to a compressed schedule of events leading up to the launch, the company's Cygnus cargo capsule is still expected to berth with the space station the morning of July 15, the press release said.Backup launch dates are available through July 17, Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski wrote in an email. However, "a launch after the 14th would require additional consultation with NASA," he said.The mission, dubbed Orb-2, was once scheduled to lift off in May but was put on hold after an AJ-26 rocket engine slated for use in a 2015 Antares/Cygnus cargo mission failed on the test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Orbital, along with its main propulsion contractor, Aerojet Rocketdyne of Sacramento, California, are still investigating what went wrong.However, tests in Virginia have determined the pair of AJ-26s integrated with the Antares at the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops are ready for the upcoming flight, the second of eight Orbital owes NASA under a $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract signed in 2008. The contract runs through 2015 and calls for delivery of at least 20,000 kilograms of cargo.The Orb-2 Cygnus capsule will remain at the space station for about 30 days, after which it will separate from the orbital outpost and dispose of some 1,300 kilograms of trash during destructive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.ULA Wraps of Design Review of Boeing Spacecraft Launch Pad; Ellen Plese CommentsAndy Reed – ExecutiveBizUnited Launch Alliance has completed the critical design review phase of work to evaluate a launch site in Florida that Boeing's Crew Space Transportation -100 spacecraft will launch from.The CDR was supported by Boeing, NASA and the Air Force and sought to evaluate the CST-100 crew module's and emergency systems, ULA said Tuesday."This was a critical milestone to ensure all elements are in place to begin the construction as early as this fall to support the Boeing team and crewed launches of CST-100 from SLC-41," said Ellen Plese, director of human launch services at ULA."As ULA was creating the innovative new design elements for the pad, human safety factors were the primary consideration.""Our focus is on human safety, and meeting these goals ahead of schedule puts us in a good position as we look forward to the next phase of the Commercial Crew Program," added John Mulholland, Boeing vice president of commercial programs and Commercial Crew Program manager.Construction of the SLC-41 pad could take up to 18 months, ULA said.SpaceX gets FAA approval to build spaceport in South TexasEric Berger – Houston ChronicleThe rocket company SpaceX on Wednesday received final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to construct a spaceport in South Texas.The agency's "Record of Decision" allows SpaceX to apply for a license to build a launch site at Boca Chica Beach, near Brownsville. The federal review found the company's plans would not disrupt the South Texas environment.The proposed 56.5-acre launch site could blast up to 12 rockets a year into space, including two Falcon 9 Heavy rockets, which could begin flying in 2015. These launches would be for commercial, as well as possibly NASA, purposes.The federal notification clears the way for SpaceX to make a decision on whether to proceed with constructing the spaceport in South Texas or elsewhere in the United States.But the decision has likely already been made. Earlier this year, the company's founder, Elon Musk, said Texas would be the choice if environmental clearance were given.The question is whether the company is ready to proceed.SpaceX has a lot on its plate, with a looming decision on whether it will receive a NASA contract to transport astronauts to the International Space Station, as well as a fight with the United Launch Alliance over spy satellite launch contracts.According to the FAA, the proposed site is undeveloped and consists of 25.43 acres of wetlands and 31.07 acres of sporadically vegetated sand dunes.The area surrounding the proposed vertical launch area is primarily used for recreational purposes.Astronauts See Typhoon Neoguri's Power from SpaceElizabeth Howell - Space.comAstronauts in space had a front-row seat this week to watch the Typhoon Neoguri transform into a powerful a super typhoon that dominated the Pacific Ocean, then downgrade back into a typical typhoon. The space travelers capture stunning images of that stormy drama from their home aboard the International Space Station."Just went right above Supertyphoon Neoguri. It is ENORMOUS. Watch out, Japan!" Alexander Gerst, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency, wrote of a photo he posted on Flickr.com Monday (July 7). The image shows the huge storm swirling below a module and solar panel on the station. It was just one of several Gerst sent from the orbiting outpost.NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted several photos of the storm, looking at its eye, framing it below a Japanese module on station and showing it above Taiwan.On Tuesday (July 8), Wiseman sent another photo showing Neoguri fading: "Neoguri has been literally cut in half. Unreal," he wrote.Typhoon Neoguri first formed in the western Pacific Ocean, south-southeast of Guam, on July 3, a NASA spokesman wrote in an update on the storm."Since then Neoguri has become increasingly more powerful and dangerous," wrote Rob Gutro from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in an update today (July 9).As of yesterday, the typhoon's top speed was at 105 knots (121 mph, or 195 km/hr). It also was pushing up wave heights to 37 feet (11.2 meters), he added. The U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center was tracking Typhoon Neoguri moving north, but forecasted it will turn to the northeast and then east in the coming hours.The typhoon is expected to make landfall at Kyushu, the third-largest Japanese island, after 8 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 10 (0000 Friday UTC).The Expedition 40 astronauts on the space station are only one set of watchful eyes keeping track of the storm from space; NASA is also monitoring the storm using its Aqua and Cloudsat satellites and the joint U.S.-Japanese satellite, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.(For full story and images see http://www.space.com/26480-typhoon-neoguri-photos-space-station-astronauts.html)Bigelow Aerospace Begins Hiring Round by Adding Former Astronauts Ham, ZamkaDan Leone – Space NewsBigelow Aerospace has hired former NASA astronauts Kenneth Ham and George Zamka to form the cornerstone of the private astronaut corps the North Las Vegas, Nevada, company will need to maintain and operate the inflatable space habitats it plans to launch some time after 2017.Zamka comes to Bigelow Aerospace from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, where he was deputy associate administrator from March 2013, when he left NASA, through June 11. Zamka will remain in Washington to aid the company's business development efforts with the U.S. and other governments, and serve as a company face for federal policymakers, Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, said in a July 9 phone interview.Ham, currently chairman of the Aerospace Engineering Department at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is set to join Bigelow at the company's North Las Vegas headquarters. A Navy captain, Ham will begin developing a training program for the astronauts Bigelow hopes to recruit, and start work on operational protocols for Bigelow Aerospace's orbital habitats.Reached via email July 9, Ham confirmed that he will begin working for Bigelow Aerospace in early September.Bigelow said the smallest space station his company plans to fly will require two BA330 modules, each of which has 330 cubic meters of internal space. The company expects to finish building the first two BA330s by 2017, Bigelow said.Ham and Zamka are former military aviators who have piloted and commanded space shuttle missions. Their NASA and military credentials are part of the appeal for Bigelow, who plans to put both former space fliers to work as recruiters."I would like to see us have half a dozen astronauts onboard by the end of the year," Bigelow said.Each Bigelow Aerospace space station would require about a dozen astronauts, including orbital, ground and backup personnel. The 660-cubic-foot stations would host four paying clients, who would be assisted by three company astronauts responsible for day-to-day maintenance, Bigelow said.Initially, clients and crews would cycle in and out of the stations in 90-day shifts, Bigelow said. Eventually, the company hopes to shorten that cycle to 60 days."Our clients don't need six months on orbit," Bigelow said, referring to the time astronauts typically remain aboard the international space station. "It's an imposition on them. They can get just as much out of three months."Zamka and Ham are part of a broader hiring push by Bigelow Aerospace. There are about 135 people in the North Las Vegas factory now, and "we're hoping to be by Christmas time somewhere in the vicinity of 175," Bigelow said. In addition, he said, "we will expand, substantially, our Washington representation," which is led by attorney Mike Gold, an export control specialist who helped arrange the launch of Bigelow's Genesis test habitats aboard Russian Dnepr rockets in 2006 and 2007.Bigelow Aerospace has yet to book a launch for the BA330 modules it is building. The company's business case hinges on the availability of domestic, commercially available launch and crew vehicles.Bigelow plans to buy these on margin from the winner of NASA's commercial crew program, under which the agency is nurturing development of vehicles to ferry crews to and from the space station.Boeing Space Exploration of Houston, Sierra Nevada Space Systems of Louisville, Colorado, and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, California, are developing vehicles under the current round of the program. NASA expects to select two concepts for full-scale development, including an initial paid crew flight, around the end of September.Bigelow is a junior partner on Boeing's commercial crew entrant, the CST-100 space capsule.Space Probe Might Lack Nitrogen to Push It HomeKenneth Chang – New York TimesA do-it-yourself team of engineers trying to lasso an aged but operational NASA space probe may have run into an insurmountable obstacle: Tanks on the spacecraft that were once full of nitrogen gas, needed to fire the thrusters, appear to be empty.Without thrusters, there is no way to push the 36-year-old spacecraft, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3, onto a trajectory to be captured back in Earth orbit. Instead, ISEE-3, which is otherwise in working order, will just fly by."Odds are, there is nothing we can do," Keith Cowing, a leader of the effort, said Wednesday.ISEE-3, launched in 1978, was designed to measure the wind that blows from the sun and buffets the Earth's magnetic field. Later, it was sent to fly through the tail of a comet. After those successes, a few final firings of its thrusters in 1986 put it on course to rendezvous back with Earth in August.In the meantime, NASA retired the probe and dismantled the transmitters needed to talk to it.This year, Mr. Cowing, the editor in chief of the website NASA Watch, and Dennis Wingo, an engineer and entrepreneur, embarked on an effort to re-establish contact and capture ISEE-3.After raising almost $160,000 on the Internet, they installed a new transmitter at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and set up mission control at Skycorp, Mr. Wingo's company, in a former McDonald's near San Jose, Calif. They successfully radioed the spacecraft in May and last week fired the thrusters to speed up its spinning motion.On Tuesday, they attempted a longer series of firings to adjust course for a close pass of the moon on Aug. 10 that would sling it into orbit around Earth. But the thrusters sputtered.On Wednesday, the team tried firings with different permutations of tanks, valves and thrusters. None worked, leading the engineers to suspect that the problem was not mechanical, but empty tanks. The nitrogen is used to squeeze the fuel, hydrazine, to the thrusters."Without that, you don't have a rocket," Mr. Cowing said.There is a small chance that ISEE-3 is on course to slam into the moon on Aug. 10. A communication session on Friday will help determine its path. If it misses the moon, it will again wander in a looping orbit around the sun."I'm going to wave to it as it goes by," said Robert W. Farquhar, who was the spacecraft's project scientist when ISEE-3 launched and who came up with the idea of sending it to visit a comet.Even though they might not be able to capture the spacecraft, Mr. Cowing said they were devising an alternative in which ISEE-3 would collect scientific data and send it back to Earth."There's a Plan B," he said. "We're going to listen to the spacecraft as long as it talks."Scott Texter: ATK, Northrop Test NASA Webb Telescope Backplane SystemMary-Louise Hoffman – ExecutiveBizATK and Northrop Grumman have jointly tested a backplane assembly for NASA's James Webb Telescope to determine if the platform could withstand the rigors of space travel and carry heavy payload.The telescope's primary mirror backplane system is built to hold scientific instruments and beryllium mirror segments and will aim to minimize temperature-related changes in telescope shape, NASA said Tuesday.Northrop built the JWST spacecraft as well as sunshield and optics technology, while ATK produced the backplane using graphite materials, composites and fabrication methods."Completion of the static testing verifies it can hold the weight it is designed to hold. Now the structural backbone of the observatory is officially verified and ready for integration," said Scott Texter, Northrop's JWST optical telescope element manager.The backplane system underwent initial cryogenic thermal assessments at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama last fall.Northrop is set to integrate the optical telescope element structure and will then deliver the OTE platform to Goddard laboratory for integration with the telescope mirrors.NASA will send the JWST spacecraft into space in 2018 to observe distant objects, planets and galaxies.Senate committees planning joint hearing on launch issuesJeff Foust – Space PoliticsA rare joint hearing of subcommittees of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Commerce Committee will examine American reliance on a Russian-manufactured rocket engine and other space access issues next week. The hearing, by Armed Services' strategic forces subcommittee and Commerce's space subcommittee, is scheduled for Wednesday, July 16, at 9:30 am. The Commerce Committee titled the hearing "Options for Assuring Domestic Space Access" and the Armed Services Committee calls it "Testimony on Assured Access to Space"; it will take place in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.According to the Commerce Committee's description of the hearing, it will "will consider the current state of the U.S. launch enterprise and the risks posed to U.S. space operations by relying on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine." Also on tap is an examination of "civil, commercial, and national security launch requirements, as well as the potential cost and schedule implications of developing launch systems."The joint hearing will feature seven witnesses in two separate panels from government, academia, and companies, although noticeably absent are representatives of any launch providers, such as SpaceX or United Launch Alliance. The lineup:Witness Panel 1The Honorable Alan F. Estevez
Principle Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and LogisticsGeneral William L. Shelton
USAF, Commander
Air Force Space CommandMr. Robert M. Lightfoot Jr.
Associate Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationWitness Panel 2Major General Howard J. Mitchell
USAF (Ret.), Vice President, Program Assessments
The Aerospace CorporationMr. Daniel L. Dumbacher
Professor of Practice
Department of Aeronautics and Aerospace Engineering, Purdue UniversityDr. Yool Kim
Senior Engineer
RAND CorporationMs. Cristina Chaplain
Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management
U.S. Government Accountability OfficeRussia test launches first new space rocket since Soviet eraAlissa de Carbonnel - ReutersRussia launched its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era from the northern military space port of Plesetsk on Wednesday, aiming to break its reliance on foreign suppliers as well as the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.The Angara rocket's quiet debut was in marked contrast to the live broadcast of an embarrassing aborted first launch attempt, watched by President Vladimir Putin via video link from the Kremlin."The first test launch of the light-class Angara-1.2PP space rocket was conducted by the Air and Space Defence Forces," Russia's Defence Ministry said in a statement, cited by Russian news agencies.The rocket blasted off at 1600 Moscow time (1200 GMT), it said, on a planned roughly 20 minute suborbital short flight across Russia's Arctic coast line.More than two decades in the works, the new generation Angara rockets are a key to President Vladimir Putin's effort to reform a once-pioneering space industry hobbled after years of budget cuts and a brain drain in the 1990s. [ID:nL6N0P82U4]The designer of the first stage RD-191 engine, Energomash, blamed the failure on its first trial launch on a drop in the pressure of the liquid oxygen tank. [ID:nL6N0PC24P]The rocket is the first entirely designed and built within post-Soviet Russia's borders - ordered by then President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s to break dependence on other ex-Soviet republics and a launch pad Russia leases from Kazakhstan.A potential commercial rival to Arianespace of France and Californian-based SpaceX, a heavier version of the modular launcher is designed to replace Russia's workhorse Proton rocket which has suffered an embarrassing litany of failures.But industry experts estimate its development has cost billions of dollars and the Angara rockets will only become commercially viable in another decade if launched from a new cosmodrome Russia is building in the far east.ENDMore at www.spacetoday.net
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