Cyclone 4M Fully Integrated Upper Stage Completes Qualification Test
DNIPRO, Ukraine (Yuzhnoye SDO/Maritime Launch Services PR) — The Cyclone 4 fully-integrated upper stage, destined for the Cyclone 4M rocket to be launched from Nova Scotia, Canada, has successfully undergone the 7000 series qualification profile on August 23, 2019. This was followed by a second full duration burn profile on August 30, 2019.
This fully-integrated system level test, which followed the recent successful completion of the C4M payload fairing qualification demonstration test, validates the key components of the satellite deployment capability for the launch complex in development in Nova Scotia at Canada’s first and only commercial orbital rocket launch complex.
The Cyclone-4 LV 3rd stage hot fire tests were intended to check the operation of pneumo-hydraulic propellant supply system to RD86lK engine, the thrust vector control system and liquid jet system, as well as the RD861K engine operation as a whole. The full test sequence of the RD861K engine had five ignitions during the first test cycle with a total burn time of 405.2 sec.
The second full test sequence of the RD861K engine also had five starts with a total engine ignition time of 400.2 sec. All of the Cyclone-4 fully integrated 3rd stage hot fire tests were successfully completed and all systems showed normal performance and confirmed the accuracy of all design objectives.
Completion of the Cyclone 4M upper stage precursor integrated system qualification test is a major step forward in the mission readiness preparation for the Cyclone 4M program, as the development of the LOx/RP1 first stage development and design of the spaceport facility and support equipment continue.
Steven Matier, CEO of Maritime Launch, commented: “The full-duration burn of our C4M upper stage brings us closer to introducing this medium-class launcher into commercial operation in 2021 from our spaceport in Canada. The C4M, with well-proven rocket technology heritage over 220 successful launches, will cater to our small-GEO, constellation and rideshare customers worldwide.”
For additional updates, follow @maritimelaunch on Twitter.
About Maritime Launch
Maritime Launch is a commercial aerospace company based in Nova Scotia. Our plan is to establish a commercially-controlled, commercially-managed, launch site that would provide rocket launch services to clients, in support of the growing commercial space transportation industry. The development of this facility will allow the Cyclone 4M launch vehicles to place satellites into low-earth and/or sun-synchronous orbit, building to a launch tempo of eight launches per year. This would be the first commercial orbital launch complex in Canada. It is anticipated Project construction to start in 2020 with first launch in the last quarter of 2021.
9 responses to “Cyclone 4M Fully Integrated Upper Stage Completes Qualification Test”
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Great. Looks like they are still hypergolic, but are working on lox-kerosene for the 1st stage. This might just get done. ESA uses this 3rd stage I think. When they get the new LOX-kersosene 1st stage tested it will look more probable. Already slipped a year. 4 RD-120 engines from Zenit 2nd stage. Sort of like Antares.
Looks that way.
The launch facility is still under construction, the rocket bits are still in development, but Maritime just signed a deal with Nanoracks to perform on-orbit rocket surgery on their expended upper stages aimed at giving them some kind of post-primary mission usefulness.
I hope this all works out. A Canadian launch facility should be at least as useful as one in Alaska and the logistics might be easier. Yuhznoye/Yuhzmash could certainly use the work too. Right now, its only New World customer is NGIS for Antares first stages – minus engines. Antares only launches a couple times a year and its future is yoked to that of the ISS. C4M has the potential to do a lot better than just semi-annual launches. The goal seems to be eight per year by 2022.
The vehicle might have a price problem, though. The projected launch price is $45 million to put either 3.5 tonnes into SSO or 5 tonnes into LEO. That will likely have to come down. Falcon 9 missions are $50 million for better than four times the payload if launched expendably. The Firefly Beta, in its new AR-1-powered single-stick form, is supposed to be able to loft 8 tonnes to LEO expendably, but is also to be capable of 1st stage reuse with a lesser payload of currently unknown size. Maritime may have to go reusable too, in some fashion, in order to stay price-competitive.
The C4M first stage uses four engines in a square arrangement. A smaller, fifth engine could perhaps be placed in the currently unoccupied center of the 1st stage base to assist ascent and handle landings.
Or perhaps the Nanoracks deal will put enough additional revenue in Maritime’s pocket for each launch that it can cut its price and still make money as an expendable.
Smallsat launch, as a business, seems to be increasingly a Red Queen’s Race in which all participants must constantly step up their game just to stay in the hunt.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… Good stuff there on that Twitter link. 1st time I have seen this 3rd stage. Wild. Canada will do some launches. Gov. and private. Pride. One person. Does not seem to have a lot of money though. Musk said he was out of money after that last F1 launch. He did not have enough money to do another if it failed. NASA, then investors rescued him .
In fairness, NASA was also, via COTS and CRS, rescuing itself to a considerable degree from its non-existent succession planning anent Shuttle. Investors – mostly those which had already backed SpaceX previously – simply saw the truth of this and have put more and more into SpaceX as time has passed.
Good investments all, too. Any investor in SpaceX has already seen a huge increase in the value of its purchased shares.
Quite fascinating that a Canadian launch company (which is actually a joint venture of 3 shadowy American companies) is buying Ukrainian rockets to launch them from picturesque Nova Scotia. The only U.S. company of those three that I could find anything about is United Paradyne in California, and even then, not much info aside from it being a small company of 152 people.
Apparently there is a local backlash against the plans to build the launch complex in Canso: https://www.halifaxexaminer…
Though it does look like the Canadian government is supporting the project so it’s looking likely to proceed (construction is slated to start sometime next year).
There is always local backlash to any sort of change. NIMBY-ism, like the poor, we shall always have with us.
As fishing and other maritime occupations in Canada have fallen to cheaper foreign competition over the past several decades, all the people in the Maritime Provinces with any get-up-and-go have long since gotten-up-and-gone – many to the oil fields of Alberta. Those left are content, in the main, to live off the dole with their eyes firmly fixed on a past that isn’t coming back and resentful of anything that changes the “character” of their beloved slum provinces. The late Stan Rogers, legendary Canadian folk singer/songwriter, wrote songs about this 40 years ago.
You’ve clearly never been to the Maritimes. Oh wait, I forgot that you are an expert on every subject on earth and space.
I grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a place with more than a passing resemblance to Canada’s Maritime Provinces.
Perhaps you’d care to explain how the Maritimes are really the dynamo of Canada. If so, they’ve been keeping their light under a really good bushel.
The UR-100 in civies