Soviets Ease Rules to Lure Space Clients

Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, in a new effort to attract foreign customers for satellite launches, said today that the Soviet Union will waive customs inspections and permit foreign technicians onto Soviet launch sites.

Ryzhkov told Tass press agency that the Soviet offer is part of a June, 1986, proposal by the Kremlin for peaceful cooperation in space.

The Kremlin offered after the explosion of the U.S. space shuttle Challenger nearly a year ago to take up some of the slack in the satellite market with their own booster rockets.

A Western science expert said the only contract Glavkosmos, the commercial space agency, is known to have signed is a deal with India to launch a space vehicle in September.

Ryzhkov said the Soviet Union is offering discounts to developing nations and will provide insurance for any satellites it launches under contract.

Addressing Western concerns about losing technological secrets, Ryzhkov said the Soviets will allow clients to ship their payloads into the country in sealed containers without customs inspection.

“Foreign specialists will be able to escort their spacecraft and watch it being transported and installed on a carrier rocket,” he told Tass. “It goes without saying that representatives of the client will be allowed into the corresponding cosmodrome.”