Kazakhstan looking for commercial rocket startups outside Russia to launch from Baikonur
The Kazakhstan government is now hoping to convert portions of its Baikonur spaceport not leased by Russia so that international rocket startups, or maybe its own commercial rocket startup, could launch from there.
While much of the site is still under Russian lease, Kazakhstan acquired the 100 km² Zenit launch site and assembly centre in 2018, and earlier this year took over the former “Gagarin” launch pad, which is now a tourist attraction. This opens the door for Astana [Kazakhstan’s capital] to negotiate directly with foreign operators.
… To give itself an edge and capitalise on the site’s potential, Kazakhstan plans to set up a special economic zone for “national space projects and foreign start-ups.” Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov has already confirmed talks with India’s Skyroot, China’s Deep Blue Aerospace, and several European firms. “We briefly discussed options for launch pads or joint grant applications,” confirmed Christian Schiemer, CEO of Germany’s HyImpulse. Other interested parties include Germany’s OHB and Rocket Factory Augsburg, as well as Airbus Defence & Space and Luxembourg’s SES.
China has also held talks about using Baikonur.
All of this however is very speculative, with sources expressing skepticism.
Kazakhstan however increasingly needs to do something to save Baikonur. At the moment the Russians have only one active launchpad, for its Soyuz-2 rocket. Two other launchpads for its Proton rocket are listed as active, but that rocket is largely retired. A fourth launchpad for Russia’s proposed new Soyuz-5 rocket remains unfinished, its future uncertain. With Russia increasingly shifting launches to its new Vostochny spaceport in the far east, it is very possible that it will eventually abandon Baikonur.
Kazakhstan has other reasons to make deals with foreign startups. Such deals will make it more independent from its untrustworthy neighbor to the north.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Kazakhstan government is now hoping to convert portions of its Baikonur spaceport not leased by Russia so that international rocket startups, or maybe its own commercial rocket startup, could launch from there.
While much of the site is still under Russian lease, Kazakhstan acquired the 100 km² Zenit launch site and assembly centre in 2018, and earlier this year took over the former “Gagarin” launch pad, which is now a tourist attraction. This opens the door for Astana [Kazakhstan’s capital] to negotiate directly with foreign operators.
… To give itself an edge and capitalise on the site’s potential, Kazakhstan plans to set up a special economic zone for “national space projects and foreign start-ups.” Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov has already confirmed talks with India’s Skyroot, China’s Deep Blue Aerospace, and several European firms. “We briefly discussed options for launch pads or joint grant applications,” confirmed Christian Schiemer, CEO of Germany’s HyImpulse. Other interested parties include Germany’s OHB and Rocket Factory Augsburg, as well as Airbus Defence & Space and Luxembourg’s SES.
China has also held talks about using Baikonur.
All of this however is very speculative, with sources expressing skepticism.
Kazakhstan however increasingly needs to do something to save Baikonur. At the moment the Russians have only one active launchpad, for its Soyuz-2 rocket. Two other launchpads for its Proton rocket are listed as active, but that rocket is largely retired. A fourth launchpad for Russia’s proposed new Soyuz-5 rocket remains unfinished, its future uncertain. With Russia increasingly shifting launches to its new Vostochny spaceport in the far east, it is very possible that it will eventually abandon Baikonur.
Kazakhstan has other reasons to make deals with foreign startups. Such deals will make it more independent from its untrustworthy neighbor to the north.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
As the saying goes, “a girl’s got to think of her future.”
The Russian space program – particularly its manned spaceflight program – has no real future beyond the decommissioning of the ISS, now scheduled for late 2030. Soyuz and Progress missions to ISS constitute much of the remaining Baikonur traffic these days. More and more Russian launches are being done from Vostochny or Plesetsk.
Never say never, I suppose, but I’m dubious about potential PRC use of Baikonur. It’s at too northerly a latitude for launches to the PRC’s space station, so space station logistics are out.
All the Moon stuff the PRC has in the works will involve rockets far too large to haul to Baikonur. All of that stuff will launch – if it ever does – from Wenchang as it has to arrive by sea.
For feasible logistics, some of the smaller PRC “commercial” rockets might work out. But these outfits all have extant launch facilities inside the PRC and they already have carte blanche to drop their booster stages on land so that isn’t a decider either. The attraction of Baikonur to such folks looks iffy. Whatever “talks” and tire-kicking these PRC outfits actually do at Baikonur can probably be chalked up to keeping up the good Potemkin front that the PRC and Russia are “allies.”
The incentives are more obvious for the European smallsat launcher builders. They have no convenient venues from which to launch anything not destined for a polar or sun-sync orbit. Baikonur is a tad northerly for launching anything needing an inclination below 45 degrees, but it would work well enough for LEO constellation deployments. Logistics to Baikonur would be a hassle, but perhaps less of one than launching from Kourou. And any of these outfits looking to support a decent launch cadence is likely to need more than one pad anyway so they may well be thinking Baikonur and Kourou rather than Baikonur instead of Kourou.
More worrisome to me is Islamic oil money going to the site–well outside Israel’s reach. If I had a nuke–a primitive one that was heavy –that’s my launch pad.
The trajectory would be high using bigger rockets, meaning a warhead comes in steep and fast–beyond easy interception.
Jeff its both cheaper and easier to just commercial ship a nuke into a target area. Either by plane, truck or boat.
It’s easier to interdict those too.