Cyclone 4 Booster Might Be Launched From Nova Scotia
Cyclone 4 first and second stages. (Credit: Alcantara Space)
Old rockets never die. They just migrate to a different part of the globe.
Ukraine’s Cyclone 4 satellite booster — left without a launch site in 2015 following the end of a decade-long partnership to launch it from Brazil’s Alcantara spaceport — has resurfaced. And Nova Scotia, Canada is on the list of possible launch locations.
The Canso-Hazel Hill area in Guysborough County has been shortlisted as a future launch base to send satellite-carrying rockets into space, one of a handful of spots across North American being eyed by a Nova Scotia company….
“The Canso site prospect is the most mature one in Canada at this point, but not the only candidate,” company president Steve Matier said in an email.
Matier spent most of 2016 evaluating about 15 potential launch locations in North America for the Ukrainian Cyclone 4M medium-class rocket….
Maritime Launch Services was jointly formed in Nova Scotia by three U.S. companies.
Alcantara Cyclone Space, a partnership of the Brazilian and Ukrainian governments, had previously attempted to launch the booster from the South American nation. However, the program suffered delays and cost overruns amid questions about the rocket’s commercial viability. The Brazilian government pulled the plug on the program in 2015 after a decade of effort.
15 responses to “Cyclone 4 Booster Might Be Launched From Nova Scotia”
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“… after a decade of THEFT.”
You northamericans will allow this toxic old piece of **** to be launched from your territory?
Newfie doesn’t count. 😉
Its sad that this partnership didn’t pan out. It seemed like a good match. One had a rocket the other a launch site…
I don’t appreciate your use of that non PC word, which is derogatory, like that N word used in the USA. You owe Doug an apology for using his site for posting such a word that hurts people from the Island.
Funny, my friends from Middleton never seem “hurt” when they or I refer to themselves as “Newfies”, and I don’t care if you appreciate it or not.
We have a Canadian Prime Minister who is a pathetic left-wing Globalist. But, yea, I am not a fan of toxic N204/UDMH. By the way, Canada had a golden opportunity to develop it’s own satellite launcher in the 1950’s by evolving the design of the V2 rocket. A Canadian soldier named Farley Mowett captured an intact V2 in Holland in 1945 and shipped it to Canada. Few people know about this today. It could have been reverse engineered, lightened by the use of mostly duraluminum, slimmed down, stretched and fueled by jet-fuel/LOX to get to something like a 100,000 Ib thrust beast that could have sent a 10 Ib microsat into LEO from Nova Scotia in the 1950’s.
Reading up it looks like they switched the toxic first stage with a rp1/lox zenit based stage, and honestly if you have a launch site there is always going to be hydrazine around in one form or another.
You are referring to steering propellant. The difference is a matter of a contrast between a few kilograms instead of tens of tonnes of hydrazine.
The Atlantic could easily dilute a few kilograms swiftly; tens of tonnes of the stuff, not so. Ask someone who traps lobsters for a living in the area.
Go look up how much NTO/MMH is on board a Dragon. Or how much is stored at CCAFS or any other place that feeds spacecraft.
I bet lobsters aren’t fans of rp1 either. But no matter the propellant most of the stuff is gonna be burned up by the flight termination system in the case of a launch failure any way. There are environmental risks yes but I don’t see them as any greater than any other launch facility now that the first stage is no longer hypergolic.
This article has more details on the rocket; https://spaceq.ca/maritime-…
it says ‘Tsyklon-4M’ is set to use a Kerolox first stage ‘with engine produced in Ukraine (probably an RD-120 derivative) and the existing upper stage and fairing from Tsyklon 4. Basically a new rocket.
Well, it is the best way an SS-9/SS-18 can visit North America 😉
This is wrong!
Cyclone 4 uses N2O4/UDMH in all stages!
This isn’t really Tsyklon 4. Read the article I linked.
Ok. I read it and you’re right. My apologies.
But the second stage (there will be a third too?) still uses toxics propelants. Any accident on the ground will terrible.
it looks like Brazilia was noted that manufacturer as not reliable