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By the numbers

• The Soyuz launch vehicle has been in continuous production since 1957, demonstrating its unmatched reliability with more than 1,700 missions to date.
• Vega is scheduled to enter operation in 2011 with a target payload lift capability of 1,500 kg. on missions to a 700-km. circular orbit.

Soyuz & Vega at the Spaceport

Shipment of first two Soyuz to French Guiana readies Arianespace for the growth of its launch vehicle family

A container is loaded on the MN Colibri with components for the two Soyuz launchers being transported from Russia to French Guiana.

November 7, 2009

This evening’s shipment of the first two Soyuz vehicles from Russia to the Spaceport in French Guiana brings Arianespace one step closer to the next major expansion of its growing commercial launcher family.

The MN Colibri’s internal cargo deck provides a large area to accommodate the Soyuz launcher components, which are carried in a controlled and protected environment.

These Soyuz 2-1a launcher versions have been loaded aboard the MN Colibri roll-on/roll-off cargo ship, which departs tonight from the Russian port city of St. Petersburg for a two-week, 5,119-nautical mile Atlantic Ocean crossing to South America. 

After the sea-going vessel’s arrival at Pariacabo port near Kourou, the Soyuz vehicles will be moved by road to the Spaceport, where they are to be available for the startup of missions with the Russian launcher from French Guiana in 2010.

Soyuz will become Arianespace’s medium-lift commercial vehicle, bringing the world’s longest-operating launcher to the most modern launch facility in service today.  Arianespace has utilized its heavy-lift Ariane 5 from the Spaceport since 1999, and the launcher family will further expand with introduction of the lightweight Vega at French Guiana in 2010.

The MN Colibri’s transatlantic trip is a historic one, representing the first ever shipment of Russia’s legendary Soyuz launcher by sea.  This workhorse vehicle family – which literally introduced the space age – has been operated from two facilities: the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Russia’s northern launch site at Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

For its maiden ocean voyage with Soyuz, the sea-going ship is loaded with a total of some 50 containers.  Each three-stage launch vehicle is divided into 10 containers, which carry the four first-stage strap-on boosters, its Block A core stage (which is transported in two segments), the Block I third stage, the Fregat upper stage and the Soyuz 2-1a’s ST-type payload fairing (shipped in two separate half-shells).

Accompanying the two Soyuz vehicles on the MN Colibri is a quantity of refined kerosene propellant for the launcher’s strap-on boosters, as well as its Block A and Block I stages; along with UDMH, N2O4 and hydrazine for its Fregat upper stage. 

A total of some 50 containers are aboard the MN Colibri on its milestone voyage that carries the initial two Soyuz launchers for operation by Arianespace from French Guiana.

Also being transported on this transatlantic crossing is a functional model of Fregat, which will be used for fueling tests in French Guiana.  During a Soyuz launch campaign, Fregat will receive its propellant load and undergo encapsulation with the payload and ST fairing in the Spaceport’s S3B preparation building.  The S3B facility has been used in past Arianespace mission campaigns, including those for Ariane 4, and currently is completing a refurbishment/upgrade for its new role in support of Soyuz flights.

The Soyuz 2-1a launchers aboard MN Colibri will be utilized for Arianespace’s two maiden flights from the Spaceport, whose candidate payloads include the HYLAS telecommunications satellite for Avanti Communications Group plc., and the French CNES space agency’s Pléiades Earth observation satellite.

In missions from the Spaceport in French Guiana, Soyuz is capable of carrying telecommunications satellites weighing up to three metric tons on missions to geostationary orbit.  The vehicle also is well tailored for the lofting of medium-sized scientific, Earth observation and constellation spacecraft on flights to low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and on Earth escape trajectories.

Once Arianespace’s complete family of vehicles is in service, it anticipates a launch rate of an average 10 missions or more per year from French Guiana – composed of approximately seven flights annually with the Ariane 5, along with from two to four Soyuz missions, and one Vega launch.

Today’s milestone shipment of Soyuz across the Atlantic is a logical extension of the sea-going transport of Arianespace launch vehicles from Europe to the Spaceport, which utilizes both the MN Colibri and its sister vessel, the MN Toucan. 

For Soyuz, each voyage will carry two Soyuz 2-1a vehicles along with the accompanying systems and propellant.  With Arianespace’s planned mission rate of two to four Soyuz flights per year, it expects to perform one or two trips annually from St. Petersburg with the Russian launchers aboard the roll-on/roll-off ships. 

The Soyuz launchers are built by Russia’s Samara Space Center, which sends the vehicles from its Samara production facility to St. Petersburg via rail.  This is the same means of transportation used to transfer Soyuz vehicles to the existing launch sites at Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome.  

Fregat upper stages are produced by NPO Lavochkin near Moscow, and this component also is being dispatched by rail – traveling to St. Petersburg to join the Soyuz 2-1a vehicles for their ocean trip to French Guiana.

• Read the press release for additional details on this milestone shipment of the first two Soyuz launchers to French Guiana.