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No more Tsyklon launches from Plesetsk

The Russian Spacec Agency and the Space Forces found themselves on the defensive regarding the use of launchers that use NDMH as fuel ("dirty" or "stinky" in the old Soviet jargon). First, there was an article in Nature, which referred to a study of health problems in Kazakhstan and Altay caused by NDMH-based rocket launches from Baykonur. The Russian Space Agency denied that the problem is seruous and claimed that the situation is under control.

Today, Russian news agencies published a report about a meeting at Arkhangelsk oblast, at which the Plesetsk representatives, answering to criticism from the oblast authorities and environmental activists, announced that there will be no Tsyklon-3 launches from Plesetsk anymore (the last one was on December 24, 2004). The deputy commander of Plesetsk launch site also said that launches of another "dirty" launcher - Kosmos-3M - will discontinue completely in about five years.

[Space] [January 20, 2005] []

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References to this entry

The end of Tsyklon launches from Plesetsk (and it is unlikely that there will be launches from Baykonur either) will not affect the military space program - the last time the launcher was used to launch a military satellite was...
[More on Tsyklon launchers] [January 21, 2005 11:26 AM] [#]
When the Space Forces announced the end of Tsyklon launches from Plesetsk, the alleged reason was that these NDMH-fueled launchers are harmful for enviroment. The harm part is certainly true, but it wasn't NDMH that tipped the scale - the...
[Rockot, Tsyklon and "dirty" launchers] [May 2, 2005 10:12 AM] [#]
Arkhangelsk region is giving the Plesetsk launch site really hard time with launches of NDMH-based rockets. In January 2005 it pledged to stop Tsyklon launches (the Khrunichev Center recently came up with a proposal to convert the Tsyklon launch comple...
[No more Kosmos-3M launches from Plesetsk?] [November 21, 2005 5:46 PM] [#]

Comments

What is the status of this? There was a Tsyklon-3 launch from Plesetsk a couple of months ago, well after that announcement.

[Anonymous] [March 17, 2009] [#]

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