Space Daily: Russia And Europe Join Forces In Space

The European Ariane 5 launcher
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Russia And Europe Join Forces In Space

Russian and European firms are pursuing a joint program to develop heavy-duty launch vehicles. The program, known as Oural, is financed equally by both parties. The European Space Agency, as its spokesmen are wont to say, is "Europe's passport to space." Today it comprises 15 countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Norway and others. For a long time the Old World's space program was way behind that of the United States, but measures taken by the ESA in recent years have improved its situation. The motivation for this came mostly from the American president's ambitious blueprint for space exploration.

Reluctant to fall behind, Europe formulated its own strategy, almost doubling its space financing. One of the key points of the new concept is to broaden international cooperation, especially in the development of advanced launch vehicles expected to usher in a new era in space utilization.The current hardware available to Europe for space launches includes the Ariane 5 heavy vehicle, fired from Kourou in French Guiana, and Russia's Soyuz medium-sized vehicle, launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. At the end of 2006, it began building a launching facility for the Soyuz-ST at Kourou and carried out firing rig tests of engines developed by the Russian Keldysh Center for the European small-class Vega rocket. The upgrading of the Ariane and Vega is expected to make Europe competitive on the space launches market.