Soviets May Loft U.S. Satellites for First Time

The Bush Administration will allow U.S. commercial satellites to be launched on Soviet rockets for the first time, a published report said.

An Australian commercial venture, the Cape York Space Agency, will be permitted to hire a U.S. company to run a base in Australia from which Soviet rockets will carry satellites for customers from around the world, the New York Times reported in today’s editions.

The project, which could be in operation by 1995, would provide a major opportunity for the Soviet Union to expand its international space business and would increase competitive pressures on the American rocket industry, the newspaper said.

The National Space Council, an interagency committee headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, met last week and completed a broad set of recommendations on the international launching business, the paper said, quoting unidentified government and industry officials.

The story said the decision to approve the Cape York project was “among the thorniest issues involved in the council’s policy review.”

A spokesman for the space council declined to comment on the report Saturday.

The newspaper said the State Department intends to grant an export license to the USBI division of United Technologies Corp. to operate the Cape York station, where Soviet Zenit rockets could be launched.

The project, estimated to cost nearly $500 million, is backed by an Australian real estate development company and would not receive any Australian government funds, the newspaper said. The Soviet space agency, Glavkosmos, would supply rockets and engineers but would not own a share in the venture.

The Times said Australia and the Soviet Union would have to comply with conditions laid out by the United States, including a Soviet promise to limit its overseas launching to a single site and to abide by an international agreement controlling the export of ballistic missile technologies that have commercial and military uses.

U.S. rocket manufacturers fear that they will suffer unfairly in a head-to-head competition with Soviet suppliers.

But, the paper said, U.S. satellite companies have warned that, if they are prevented from putting their payloads on the cheapest available rockets, they will lose business to foreign satellite makers.