UAF targets rocket launches from the Slope ‘Making Alaska low-cost gateway to space’ in play
Kodiak fly in unrestricted airspace above the North Pacific Ocean. Launches from Oliktok on the North Slope would extend the launch activity of the UAF and AADC to the north, over the Arctic Ocean, but it’s not the first time rockets have been launched in the region. In the mid- 1960s, there were launches from Point Barrow a few miles north of the pres- ent community of Utqiagvik. The U.S. Navy operated the Naval Arctic Re- search Laboratory there at the time. This time around, the plan is to use a tract of U.S. Air Force property at the closed POW-C former DEWline radar station at Oliktok. There are buildings at the site that can be used, an airstrip and, most important, a road connec- tion to the state airport at Deadhorse. Rockets, fuel and other material can be flown into Deadhorse or trucked up the Dalton Highway. “We want to make Alaska the low- cost gateway to space,” Geophysical Institute Director Bob McCoy said. “Other launch ranges are pretty full, so customers are looking to Alaska. We have a lot of capacity.” The agreement between the Geo- physical Institute and Alaska Aero- space expands on a relationship spec- ified in state law, which mandates a connection between the two but with a separate and independent legal exis- tence for the AADC. The corporation’s board of directors by law includes the University of Alaska president and the Geophysical Institute director or their designees. Rockets used to do high-altitude research are one of a number of space and aviation-related research initia- tives underway at the Fairbanks uni- versity. UAF also operates the nation’s most advanced testing program for nonmilitary drones and pilotless air- craft. This includes drones used for ther- mal imaging and other observations along the 800-mile Trans-Alaska oil pipeline and most recently test de- liveries of small cargo to and from offshore platforms in Cook Inlet. The potential for deliveries to remote sites has been a real focus. The goal is to allow delivery of supplies and equip- ment in marginal weather conditions
where an on-board pilot could be at risk. Demonstrations have included Cessna Caravans commonly used in Alaska equipped to be operated re- motely by pilots. UAF will take delivery in Septem- ber of a Windracer, a cargo drone that has been used successfully in Antarc- tica, the Orkney Islands in the United Kingdom and in Ukraine. Its ability to land on an aircraft carrier has also been demonstrated. The 900-pound aircraft has a wingspan of 32 feet and
can carry a payload of 200 pounds. It can have a range of several hundred miles. Rural hospitals are keenly inter- ested in pilotless delivery of freight as a way to improve delivery of medical supplies and equipment to clinics in remote villages, and in poor weath- er that can put pilots at risk. UAF has support facilities for tests of pilotless aircraft at airports in Fairbanks and Nenana, southwest of Fairbanks.
— Tim Bradner TEMSCO
There may be a new sound booming across the North Slope west of Prud- hoe Bay sometime soon. It would be the loud roar of a multi-stage research rocket soaring from Oliktok Point sev- eral hundred miles into the upper at- mosphere and the edge of space. Caribou and polar bears will be startled. Truck drivers should be fore- warned. Oliktok is on the Beaufort Sea coast northwest of the producing Kuparuk River field. It is best known as the site where companies land barges laden with equipment and oilfield mod - ules. The University of Alaska Fair- banks, or UAF, and the state’s Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation, which operates the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska (PSCA) at Kodiak are partnering in a proposal to use Olik- tok’s location at 70 degrees north lat- itude as an advantageous latitude to do launches to near-space for Aurora and other high-altitude research. UAF now sends rockets up from its Poker Flat Research Range near Fair- banks, which is the largest on-land U.S. launch site and which the uni- versity has operated since 1969. The Poker Flats site includes four launch pads capable of handling rockets weighing up to 35,000 pounds. The university has been launching from Poker Flats since 1969 and now carries out three to four tests yearly supporting high-altitude research. The Poker Flat Research Range is on 5,132 acres near Chatanika, about 25
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miles north of Fairbanks. The flight range, traversed by the rockets, is much larger reaching north into the Arctic Ocean. A new development is a collab- oration between UAF’s Geophysical Institute and the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation (AADC) to jointly develop and offer spaceport services to the commercial U.S. rock- et and satellite industry. The Pacific Spaceport Complex operated by the AADC is in the southern part of Kodiak Island, off Alaska’s south coast. It was
the first commercial spaceport in the United States licensed by the Federal Aviation Agency that is not co-located on a federal range. Alaska Aerospace has operated the Kodiak Launch Site since the 1980s, supporting launches to orbit and sub-orbit mainly related to national defense and test interceptions of en- emy ballistic missions. The spaceport has pads for orbital and suborbital launches, a 17-story rocket assembly building and associated buildings for operations. Rockets launched from
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