Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 8, 1990 TAG: 9007080077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As a result of decisions made at the White House last week, an Australian commercial venture known as the Cape York Space Agency will be permitted to hire a U.S. company to run a base in northern Australia from which Soviet rockets will carry satellites into orbit for customers from around the world, perhaps as early as 1995, the officials said.
The project provides a major opportunity for the Soviet Union to expand its international space business and is expected to increase foreign competitive pressures on the U.S. rocket industry.
Domestic rocket companies had opposed letting the Soviet Union provide launching services for U.S. customers, but the satellite makers had favored opening up the market.
Representatives for both groups said the decision seemed evenhanded, since it includes provisions intended to insure that the Soviet Union prices its rockets fairly.
In recent years, the United States has shifted the job of launching privately owned satellites from the government's space agency to aerospace companies.
But the domestic industry faces intense competition from the European consortium Arianespace, and the availability of inexpensive rockets from China and the Soviet Union is also a worry for domestic suppliers who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a business fraught with technical risks.
Last week the National Space Council, an inter-agency committee headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, completed a broad set of recommendations effecting the international launching business.
The decision to approve the Cape York project was among the thorniest issues involved in the council's policy review.
But despite the warming in U.S.-Soviet relations, and considerable interest from U.S. satellite companies in using Soviet launching services, there has never been any sign that the United States was ready to abandon its opposition to a cooperative arrangement, especially if it meant launching U.S. satellites from Soviet soil.
Rocket and satellite technologies are strictly controlled because of their military applications.
Now the State Department intends to grant an initial export license to the USBI division of United Technologies Corp. to operate the Cape York station, where Soviet Zenit rockets could be launched beginning in 1995.
The project, estimated to cost nearly $500 million, is backed by an Australian real estate development company and would not receive any Australian government funds.
The Soviet space agency, Glavkosmos, would supply rockets and engineers, but would not own a share in the venture.
The State Department is expected to issue the Cape York license once Bush approves the new policy governing the international trade in rocket-launching services.
by CNB