The Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands will be the site of as many as four rocket launches annually beginning next year. Despite published reports in a Honolulu newspaper saying local launches could start next May, a PMRF
The Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands will be the site of as many as four rocket launches annually beginning next year.
Despite published reports in a Honolulu newspaper saying local launches could start next May, a PMRF spokeswoman said no launch date has been set.
“The earliest possible date for a launch is unknown at this time. It depends on completion of required environmental documentation and subsequent mission requirements and schedules,” said Vida Mossman, PMRF’s public affairs officer.
Eight launches are tentatively planned for next year in the Army’s STARS (Strategic Target System) program, four of which would be from the Navy’s launch pad at PMRF.
The other four launches are planned for the Kodiak Launch Complex, an Army site on an Alaskan island.
The program is slated for the next five years, through 2006.
Michael Jones, an associate physicist at the University of Hawai`i-Manoa, said there is a question about exact trajectories for the missiles.
“I’ve not seen a detailed trajectory.
They are saying directly northeast, which would be directly over Kaua`i. I suspect they will go out west and do a dogleg (northeast), which was what was done before,” Jones said.
There were four launches from Kaua`i between 1993 and 1996.
The rockets launched from Kodiak will be aimed at open ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands.
For the launches from Kaua`i, out over the Pacific Ocean toward the northwest coast of the mainland, approximately 45 temporary support personnel would be brought to PMRF, according to Mossman.
Additional personnel would arrive to help one week before each launch, she added.
PMRF can “safely support STAR’s mission” and will ensure compliance with National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and range support requirements, Mossman said.
The launches are powered by Polaris rocket engines.
The Army said the launches are needed to test tracking sensors on the mainland, which are a component of the U.S. national defense.
North Shore activist Ray Chuan, one of the protesters against the first series of launches from 1993 to 1996, characterized the project as “make-work.” “I’m a little surprised that they got back in business. What they’ll really have to do is a failure analysis on the probability of a (rocket) blow up,” Chuan said.
The military has said repeatedly that the Polaris engines are not outmoded and are tested before launch to ensure safety.
Jones, however, said the Polaris “are old rocket boosters,” as much as three decades old. “They say they will be refurbished, but if you look at the results of launches with refurbished Minuteman (rockets), about 15 percent have failed. That’s one of the main concerns. These are the largest rockets, in terms of weight, launched” from PMRF.
The original series of PMRF launches, greatly reduced in number from the first projections, were on Feb. 26, 1993, Aug. 25, 1993, July 22, 1994 and Aug. 31, 1996.
There were large protests on Kaua’i, including confrontations and arrests. They dwindled with each subsequent launch, but there were no misfires in the four completed Hawaiian launches.
According to press reports at that time, the Kaua`i launches cost an average of $6.75 million dollars each.
According to Jones, there are no public hearings slated for Kaua`i on the latest round of proposed launches.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and dwilken@pulitzer.net
