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OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
about a meeting of the Council of Chief Designers
on the preliminary design of the upper stage Block DM-SL B
and Ascent Unit of the Land Launch space launcher system.

January 15, 2003. Korolev, Moscow region.

On January 15, 2003, S.P.Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia 
hosted a meeting of the Council of Chief Designers chaired by the 
S.P.Korolev RSC Energia Designer General, a member of the Russian 
Academy of Sciences, Yu.P.Semenov, which reviewed preliminary designs 
for upper stage DM-SL B and the Ascent Unit with this upper stage 
within the Land Launch space launcher system.

The Land Launch system is being developed to performance 
specifications from the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, and is 
based on the earlier design experience and production capacities of 
Russian and Ukrainian rocket and space companies from the Sea Launch 
project, including the Zenit-3 SL launch vehicle (LV) with upper stage 
DM-SL.It is planned to base the system at the Baikonur launch site, 
where an infrastructure is available to support activities on 
spacecraft, DM-type upper stages, and Zenit-type LV.

The Council of Chief Designers reviewed and approved the presented
preliminary designs, noting that the proposed upper stage engineering
solutions are aimed at improving its mass, performance and operational
properties, and that flight tests of the Land Launch system can be 
started as early as mid-2004, provided all the required ground 
infrastructure work is complete.

Participating in the work of the Council of Chief Designers were the
Rosaviacosmos Deputy Director General A.N.Kuznetsov, managers and
representatives of the companies participating in the Land Launch 
project.  This project is being implemented in coordination with the 
international company Sea Launch as an additional option for the 
spacecraft launch services that are being provided.

The Council of Chief Designers was presented with the findings of the
commission headed by a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
A.S.Koroteev that was set up to analyze the failure of the upper stage 
Block DM3 during launch of Astra-1K spacecraft on November 26, 2002.

Note was taken of the fact that the failure was caused by a 
burn-through in the line at the exit from the main engine gas 
generator, caused by an excess of fuel in the gas generator, and that 
this failure is an isolated case that does not affect the achieved 
reliability of the engine and the upper stage as a whole.

The Council reviewed the recommendations of the commission on the 
upper stage pre-launch processing and the results of their 
implementation on the next upper stage, which, on December 25, 2002, 
successfully put into the working orbit the spacecraft of the Russian 
Global Navigation Satellite System Glonass.

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