The fire that broke out yesterday morning at Esrange during a scheduled
static firing test of a solid rocket motor, partially damaged the
infrastructure used for launching sounding rockets. The remaining operations
at Esrange, which is one of the world’s most versatile space bases, are not
affected by the incident.
Esrange Space Center is one of the world’s most versatile space bases,
including a number of functions that are important to our society. The base
is currently being expanded with new capability for further utilization of
space.
The fire did not cause any damages to the majority of the ongoing operations
at Esrange. Satellite operations and communications, stratospheric balloons
and the newly established rocket testing facility was not affected, nor was
the ongoing expansion for the planned satellite launches.
However, the fire caused damage to parts of the launching facility for
sounding rockets (rockets conducting research in microgravity) used at
Esrange since the 60’s, as well as parts of the nearby buildings. No one was
injured in the incident.
“Most important is that our staff and everyone else who were at the base are
safe. But there are many sad faces at Esrange today. The sounding rocket
operations is somewhat the heart of Esrange since this was where it all
began more than fifty years ago”, says Lennart Poromaa, SSC Site Manager.
The Rescue Services left the site late Thursday evening. An investigation is
now being carried out to find the cause of the accident and evaluate how to
resume the sounding rocket operations.
“It is still too early to say what caused the fire. SSC will seek external
assistance to investigate the incident together with our own experts, in
order to avoid similar incidents in the future”, says Stefan Gardefjord, SSC
CEO.
“Now, it is important to resume our sounding rocket operations as quickly as
possible. These rockets carry important experiments for research purposes
within various areas. We are now working intensively to see how we can
resume this part of our business again”, says Lennart Poromaa.