Kourou Soyuz Needs Only 98 Workers

According to the ITAR-TASS story at,

"http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/394859.html"

only 98 Russian workers will be needed to process and launch each
Soyuz from Kourou (beginning in 2006) - and only 15 will be
needed at the site between launch campaigns.

Does anyone know how many workers are needed to process equivalent
Western rockets?

The story also says that RKK Energia is only getting 100-ish
million Euros for launch site development. (How much did those
new EELV pads cost?) If ISS/NASA history is a guide, though,
the Russians will try to squeeze ESA for more money once the
rockets start flying.

- Ed Kyle

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
According to the ITAR-TASS story at,

"http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/394859.html"

only 98 Russian workers will be needed to process and launch each
Soyuz from Kourou (beginning in 2006) - and only 15 will be
needed at the site between launch campaigns.

Does anyone know how many workers are needed to process equivalent
Western rockets?

These are just ground handlers of course. I suspect that a Ariane 4/5 or
Atlas has about the same number of people, maybe slightly more. The rockets
are basically shipped completely tested from Russia so all they have to do
is screw them together and fill them up.

Ultimate Buu wrote:

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...

According to the ITAR-TASS story at,

"http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/394859.html"

only 98 Russian workers will be needed to process and launch each
Soyuz from Kourou (beginning in 2006) - and only 15 will be
needed at the site between launch campaigns.

Does anyone know how many workers are needed to process equivalent
Western rockets?


These are just ground handlers of course. I suspect that a Ariane 4/5 or
Atlas has about the same number of people, maybe slightly more. The rockets
are basically shipped completely tested from Russia so all they have to do
is screw them together and fill them up.

The Soyuz rockets cost in the ballpark of $5 million each; so you can
estimate how much manpower they take to build if you know the average
wages. Wage might be under $10,000, but with a loaded labour rate on top
to pay for all the infrastructure. Probably under 250 people involved in
manufacture I'd guess or around there.

Anyone know?

"Colonel K" wrote in message . com...

Delta II workforce is somewhere around 200, Delta IV currently employs a
total of about 300. Those numbers include engineering support and
administrative types. I don't know how big the Atlas V workforce is, but the
parking lot isn't very big :-) I don't have a clue about the Titan IV
workforce. It's probably up around a million or so.


The Air Force says that the Titan IVB now on Pad 40 is worth
$500 million. $500 million is enough to employ several
thousand people (production, integration, launch) - and
they've been launching an average of two per year recently.

My guess for Titan IVB launch would be something like the
following.

Contractor Personnel
(People who do Stuff)

SRB Contractor 60
Core Titan Stages 100
Centaur Stage 60
Payload Integration 50
Site Crews 60
SUBTOTAL 330

Contractor Oversight Personnel
(People who Sign Forms, etc.)

330

Additional People With No Assigned Tasks Who
Sit in the Control Rooms During Launch

330

GRAND TOTAL 990

But that's just a guess. We'll never know as
long as these launches are secret.

Thanks for the info!

- Ed Kyle

On 14 Aug 2003 11:31:20 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

The Air Force says that the Titan IVB now on Pad 40 is worth
$500 million.

Well, it may have cost that much, but it's not clear that it's worth
that much...

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
According to the ITAR-TASS story at,

"http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/394859.html"

only 98 Russian workers will be needed to process and launch each
Soyuz from Kourou (beginning in 2006) - and only 15 will be
needed at the site between launch campaigns.

I think people forget that the R-7 rocket design was designed to operated
with a very small crew--after all, it was originally designed as an ICBM!
And the Russians have demonstrated they could launch this rocket with small
ground crews--witness the Plesetsk launch site, which could assemble and
launch rockets in a matter of days during the Cold War for flying
reconnaissance satellites.

--
Raymond Chuang
Mountain View, CA USA

ed kyle wrote:

The story also says that RKK Energia is only getting 100-ish
million Euros for launch site development. (How much did those
new EELV pads cost?)

Boeing spent about $250 million each for the CCAFS and VAFB launch sites.
Lockheed is getting a $200 million subsidy from the USAF for its VAFB
launch site.

Mike

-----
Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
St. Peters, MO

"Michael Kent" wrote in message
...
Boeing spent about $250 million each for the CCAFS and VAFB launch sites.
Lockheed is getting a $200 million subsidy from the USAF for its VAFB
launch site.

Boeing didn't pay for SLC 37B construction - Florida Space Authority did
(also for the SLC 41 mods). Both Boeing and LM *lease* their respective EELV
pads at the Cape.

-Colonel K

"Colonel K" wrote in message . com...
"Michael Kent" wrote in message
...
Boeing spent about $250 million each for the CCAFS and VAFB launch sites.
Lockheed is getting a $200 million subsidy from the USAF for its VAFB
launch site.

Boeing didn't pay for SLC 37B construction - Florida Space Authority did
(also for the SLC 41 mods). Both Boeing and LM *lease* their respective EELV
pads at the Cape.


Didn't this outfit also fund redevelopment of SLC 46 for use
(only once or twice) by now-defunct Athena? Could we see this
organization caring for yet another mothballed launch site
before long?

- Ed Kyle

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
Boeing didn't pay for SLC 37B construction - Florida Space Authority did
(also for the SLC 41 mods). Both Boeing and LM *lease* their respective
EELV
pads at the Cape.


Didn't this outfit also fund redevelopment of SLC 46 for use
(only once or twice) by now-defunct Athena? Could we see this
organization caring for yet another mothballed launch site
before long?

Yeah, I think they did. I heard something about Musk using 46 for SpaceX
tests. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

-Colonel K