Svobodny Cosmodrome
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 ' N , 128 ° 10' E
The Svobodny Cosmodrome ( Russian Космодром Свободный ) is a rocket launch site in the Far East of Russia that was used between 1996 and 2006 . It is located about 20 km northwest of the city of Svobodny in the Amur Oblast .
history
ICBM base
From 1968, around 100 rocket silos for ICBMs , camouflaged as coal mines, were built near the town of Svobodny . At the end of 1993, after the START II disarmament talks between the Soviet Union and the USA , the launch facilities were shut down. Around 5000 people are said to have lived in the complex's housing estate at that time.
Launch site for launch vehicles
Since after the collapse of the Soviet Union the launch site Baikonur was outside the national territory, were the Russian authorities on the lookout for a suitable replacement.
On November 30, 1993, Svobodny was officially named a test center. Five UR-100 ICBM missile silos were to be converted for the new Strela and Rockot missiles , both based on the UR-100N ICBM . Long-term plans included Svobodny as the launch site for the new Angara missile .
On March 1, 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared Svobodny a cosmodrome. However, the construction work progressed slowly, the first launch of the Strela did not take place in Svobodny, but in Baikonur. However, from 1997, Svobodny launch rockets were able to put satellites into orbit.
Starting list 1997-2006
From 1997 to 2006 five satellite launches took place in Svobodny. All satellites were placed in polar orbits.
| Date, time (UTC) | rocket | satellite | function |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 4, 1997, 2:00 am | Start-1.2 | Seja | Russian military communications satellite |
| December 24, 1997, 1:32 pm | Start-1 | Earlybird 1 | American earth observation satellite |
| December 6, 2000, 12:32 | Start-1 | EROS-A 1 | Israeli Earth Observation Satellite |
| February 20, 2001, 8:48 am | Start-1 | Odin | Swedish satellite telescope for astronomy and aeronomy |
| April 25, 2006, 4:47 pm | Start-1 | EROS-B | Israeli Earth Observation Satellite |
Shutdown of the rocket launch site
As early as 2005 it was stated that Svobodny could no longer be operated, at the end of 2006 it was decided not to use the launch site for financial reasons, the three launch silos should either be blown up or filled with concrete , according to Vladimir Popovkin , the commander of the Russian space missile troops . The closure was formally sealed in February 2007 by a presidential decree.
From July 2007 Swobodny was again shortlisted for Russia's future missile launch site. The head of the Roscosmos space agency , Anatoly Perminov , and a delegation first visited Svobodny, then Vanino on the Pacific coast. In November 2007, the choice finally fell on a new building, which has since been erected near Swobodny under the name of Kosmodrom Wostotschny .
Trivia
In the German science fiction literature, an "Amur cosmodrome" was first mentioned in Alexander Kröger's novel Sieben fell vom Himmel (1969) .
literature
- Igor Sergejew u. a .: Wojenny enziklopeditscheski slovak raketnych woisk strategitscheskogo nasnatschenija . Bolschaja Rossijskaja enziklopedija, Moscow 1999, pp. 257-258. ISBN 5-85270-315-X . (Russian)
Web links
- Svobodny in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Alain Chabot and Anatoly Zak: Centers: Svobodny. In: russianspaceweb.com. January 26, 2014, accessed April 4, 2014 .
- ↑ Svobodniy in the Encyclopedia Astronautica, accessed April 4, 2014 (English).
- ↑ Nicolas Pillet: Le lanceur Strela: le segment sol. July 9, 2013, accessed on April 4, 2014 (French).
- ↑ Final conservation of the Russian Svobodny Cosmodrome in the Amur region. RIA Novosti, January 22, 2007, accessed April 4, 2014 .
- ↑ The Svobodny Spaceport is closed. Der Standard, January 30, 2007, accessed April 4, 2014 .
- ↑ Russia wants to revolutionize space travel . Raumfahrt Concret, issue 79/80. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved April 3, 2014.