Shaba North
Coordinates: 7 ° 55 ′ 45 ″ S , 28 ° 31 ′ 48 ″ E
Shaba North (other name: Kapani Tonneo ) is a former rocket launch site in the former Zaire , today's Democratic Republic of the Congo. From there, three suborbital test flights took place.
The area had a total area of 100,000 km². This corresponds to about 4% of the entire national territory and exceeds the area of Austria. The area largely consisted of a high plateau on the Luvua River, 1,300 m above sea level . On December 9, 1975, the government of the State of Zaire rented this area to the German company OTRAG . The contract should run until 2000.
OTRAG set up a launch site on a steeply sloping cliff to test the commercial OTRAG rocket. The first start of Shaba North took place on May 17, 1977 and was used to test the drive units. The six-meter-long rocket rose to a height of 12 km (above sea level) after the scheduled burn time of approx. 10.5 s.
The second launch took place on the night of May 20, 1978. This time, the rocket, which was extended to 12 m, reached a height of 9 km (above sea level). The premature burnout occurred s (planned 24 s) by damage to the just after 20 ablative protected combustion chambers.
A third start on June 5, 1978 in the presence of the head of state Mobutu Sese Seko turned out to be a failure. The 12-meter long rocket came off course when it left the launch frame and crashed into a nearby valley after a few seconds.
Probably due to international pressure, the state of Zaire canceled the lease on April 15, 1979 and OTRAG had to give up the starting place. Further tests of the OTRAG missile took place from 1981 at Camp Tawiwa in Libya .
Web links
- Kapani Tonneo in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
- Bernd Leitenberger: OTRAG rocket