The investigation into the corruption during the construction of Russia’s new spaceport Vostochny has been completed, with four Russians to be charged.
It also appears a fifth is on the lam and “has been put on the international wanted list.”
The competition heats up: In an effort to lure space tourism companies to Georgia, the state’s House has passed a law that would ban lawsuits by space tourists against the space companies that flew them.
The bill still needs approval from the state Senate.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has begun prepping the construction sites at its private spaceport in Brownsville, Texas.
The county has begun work on a road to where the spaceport command center will be, and SpaceX has established its construction headquarters in a double-wide trailer there. It is expected that actual construction of the command center will begin in August, with the launchpad construction to follow.
The expected cost for building the entire spaceport: $100 million. Compare that to the billions the Russians are spending for Vostochny, or the billions that NASA spends on comparable facilities.
Because they haven’t been paid in months, 26 workers at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny have started a hunger strike.
This sure indicates that Russia isn’t going to get this spaceport ready for its first launch this year. And even if that launch does go off as planned, it does indicate some deeper problems that are going to haunt Russia’s space efforts in future years.
The Russian government has once again increased its supervision of the construction of the Vostochny spaceport, now 120 days behind schedule.
They want to launch the first rocket from the spaceport by December of this year. The story also describes how contractors have been ordered, by Russia’s deputy prime minister himself, to stop leaving delicate new equipment in unprotected environments, as the equipment has been delivered before the buildings they are supposed be stored in have been finished.
Where the equipment will be put is not said. The boss has ordered it, however, so it better happen!
Yesterday, as part of my visit to Vandenberg Air Force Base to give a space history lecture to the local section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I was given a short tour of these west coast launch facilities. While Kennedy is used for launches that circle the equator, Vandenberg, with its southern-facing coast, launches rockets that head south over the ocean for a polar orbit.
We only had time to go inside one launchpad, where unfortunately I was not permitted to take pictures. However, the images I did get will give you a reasonable sense of the layout for this spaceport, which is increasingly becoming a spaceport for private launch companies like ULA and SpaceX. Though the bulk of business for both companies here might be military and government payloads, the future is still going to include a lot of private payloads. The images also help to highlight the differences between these two companies, as well as some past history, as one of these launchpads was once intended for the space shuttle, though never used for that purpose.
» Read more
The Siberian Times has posted a very interesting photo tour of Russia’s new spaceport, Vostochny, presently under construction.
The article is very much a propaganda piece pushed by the Russian government (some photos were actually taken by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin himself), but it still gives you a sense of the scale and size of the project.
It is quite instructive to compare how the Russians do things, with a giant public works project costing $5 billion and taking more than a decade to build, with how the Americans do things, with a small privately-built space port being constructed by SpaceX in Brownsville for mere millions and in only a few years.
The competition heats up: The British government has down-selected its choices for a future spaceport in Great Britain to six airports, two of which have already said they are not interested in taking on the job.
The remaining four sites include two in Scotland, and one each in Wales and southwestern England. If I had to choose just based on orbital mechanics, the English site would win, as it is farther south thereby capable of putting more payload in orbit for the same fuel. However, politics and pork will certainly be a factor in any final decision, as this spaceport location is being decided not by private companies but by the British government.
In a detailed update on the status of Russia’s new Vostochny spaceport, russianspaceweb reports that the construction continues to be behind schedule.
Whether they can meet the government imposed deadline of first Soyuz rocket launch by the end of 2015 seems very doubtful. More significant is this interesting quote:
In the meantime, various sensitive systems, which arrived to Vostochny for installation into unfinished facilities, were rusting inside their containers along railway sidings.
Obviously, without enough qualified personnel at the remote construction site, Spetsstroi had little choice but to focus on facilities with the highest profile for visiting Moscow officials. Moreover, the work had to be done in a great haste, increasing the chances for mistakes and leading to a low quality of construction.
Boy, does that sound like the Soviet Union all over again. It also reminds me of how most government agencies operate in the U.S.
Want to work for SpaceX? You can! They are now posting job openings for those who want to work at their new spaceport in Brownsville Texas.
The man formerly in charge of construction at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny has been arrested and charged with stealing $43 million dollars from the project.
The corruption might be true, as this kind of thing is culturally typical for the centralized government-run operations that are generally favored in Russia. It is also possible that Putin’s government wanted a scapegoat to blame for the construction delays and cost overruns in building Vostochny.
Either way, Putin gets what he wants. This prosecution will make it very clear to everyone involved in building Vostochny that the government wants it built fast and without further theft, and it is watching what people do there very closely.
The competition heats up: At a ceremonial ground-breaking today in Brownsville, Texas, SpaceX officially began construction on the company’s own private spaceport for launching commercial satellites.
I will have more to say about this tomorrow. Regardless, this is a big deal, a private company building its own private spaceport.
