Chesterfield Inlet may host site for tracking Russian rockets

DWANE WILKIN

A Manitoba aerospace company wants to place a remote guidance system for Russian rockets in Chesterfield Inlet.

Akjuit Aerospace Inc. is proposing that the hamlet provide a site for monitoring the progress of satellite-bearing missiles launched from the world’s first commercial “space airport,” now under development in Churchill, 500 km to the south.

Won’t talk publicly

But negotiations between SpacePort Canada’s promoters and the hamlet are, for the time being at least, top-secret.

Contacted this week, neither the company nor the hamlet would agree to discuss status of the proposal, though Roy Mullins, senior administrative officer for Chesterfield Inlet confirmed the parties have signed a memorandum of understanding.

“What we want to do first is make sure that the community is going to receive some sort of benefit from the project,” said Mullins.

David Alagalak, a Nunavut Implementation Commissioner from Arviat who is quoted in promotional material carried on Akjuit’s Internet website, also refused to discuss the proposal or his relationship with the aerospace company.

Last year Akjuit signed a deal with Russia’s Scientific and Technological Centre Complex (STC) to turn Churchill into the world’s foremost private launch site for small communications satellites. The company hopes to begin launching the first rockets early in 1999.

According to its own publicity brochure, the advanced tracking system Akjuit proposed for Chesterfield Inlet would require installation of several large spherical antennae, arranged in a straight line across the tundra at intervals of several hundred metres.

The instruments would receive signals from the rockets as they carry their payload out of the earth’s atmosphere, relaying the information to mission control in Churchill.

Growing satellite market

Self-destruct instructions would be transmitted from here if a launch should have to be terminated for safety reasons.

Lawrence Prout, Akjuit’s vice-president of public relations, said there is growing interest in low-earth satellites for enhancing voice communication, data transfer, paging services and global transportation.

It’s easier, he said, to launch satellites into low-earth orbit from northern altitudes, a factor which has helped make Churchill a desirable location for the spaceport.

“The closer you get to the north pole or the south pole the easier it is to launch into a polar orbit.”

Prout said he expects a final agreement with the hamlet will soon be reached.

“I don’t think we’re years away, we’re probably months away,” Prout said.

Russian rockets

The SpacePort site at Churchill was a strategic air-command base for the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War, and a sounding rocket test range from the 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Akjuit refurbished the site in 1994, to serve customers in the burgeoning satellite-communications industry.

Under the deal with STC, Russian START rockets would be put to use for customers who want to inject satellites into low-earth orbit­200 to 1,000 km from the earth’s surface.

Cold War technology

Russia employed the same technology during the Cold War to build its arsenal of SS-20 and SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Spaceport Canada is still waiting for further investment at this point, and has yet to sign on its first launch customer.

“One of two things have to occur for us to proceed,” Prout said. “Either we have to have a strategic investor come forward. Or we have to find a major contract, not just for one launch but for a whole series of launches. And when that occurs, then that triggers, hopefully, the necessary financing.”