Nov 23 1999
From The Space Library
Oleksandr Serdiuk, head of the International Relations Department of Ukraine's Space Agency, announced that Ukraine and Brazil had signed an agreement the previous week, allowing Ukraine to use Brazil's Alcantara space complex to launch a new generation of Cyclone-4 booster rockets, medium-weight rockets capable of putting 4 tons (3,600 kilograms or 3.6 tonnes) of payload into a geostationary orbit. In 1992, when the USSR dissolved, Ukraine had retained part of the former Soviet Union's space program, using several former Soviet factories to build rockets and selling rocket space to commercial satellite companies. Before the agreement with Brazil, Ukraine had only used launchpads in other former Soviet countries. However, Ukraine wanted to take advantage of the location of the Alcantara space complex near the equator, where spacecraft reach orbit more easily and commercial launches are cheaper.
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