Space gazing; sizing up Alaska's satellite launch potential.

• Author: Whitaker, Wilda
• Position: Satellite launching facilities in Alaska

SPACE GAZING

Sizing Up Alaska's Satellite Launch Potential

Tucked in a steep valley 30 winding miles from Fairbanks lies a 5,200-acre research station. There, for the past two decades, scientists have launched rockets into the skies to study the atmosphere and the aurora borealis.

Trekking to the station from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute in the early days, scientists working in the station's relative isolation dubbed it the Poker Flat Research Range. They borrowed the name from a short story by Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," about a group of ne'er-do-wells thrown out of a mining camp into a blinding blizzard.

Since then, more than 200 scientific experiments have been launched from rockets at Poker Flat. But the range's remote location on the Steese Highway has helped it maintain the somewhat forsaken character for which it was named.

Those days could be coming to an end. The evolving technology that is creating "micro-satellites" that are smaller, lighter and less expensive than their larger predecessors has led representatives from the state, university and industry to eye the range as a potential site for commercial launches into polar orbit.

"I think this is an incomparable opportunity," says Glenn Olds, commissioner of the state Department of Commerce and Economic Development. "I think the 21st century will be dominated by the domestication and commercialization of space, and I think Alaska has a chance to be a premier actor on that stage."

Satellites of an earlier era weighed 5,000 pounds or more, cost $200 million to build and required huge rockets to push them into space. The new micro-satellites weigh less than 500 pounds, are 10 times cheaper to build and can be launched with 50,000-pound rockets for less than $5 million.

With uses ranging from communications to oil exploration, the commercial space market is the world's fastest growing new industry, says Peter Diamandis, president of MicroSat Launch Systems Inc., a Virginia-based aerospace company. He notes 17 micro-satellites were launched into orbit last year.

Nationally, revenues from the commercial space industry grew from $2.8 billion in 1989 to $3.6 billion last year, according to "Space Business Indicators" published by the U.S. Department of Commerce in June 1990.

Launching into polar orbit requires a larger pad than is currently available at Poker Flat. But once equipped with such a pad, Poker Flat's geographic location and civilian...