RTw  01/25 1218  Norwegian scientific rocket causes global scare

    By Rolf Soderlind

     OSLO, Jan 25 (Reuter) - Norwegian scientists were appalled on
Wednesday that the peaceful firing of a scientific rocket had
apparently triggered an air defence alert in Russia and an
international scare.

     A Russian report said a missile had been launched from Norway but
failed to reach Russia, instead crashing in Norway's Spitzbergen
arctic territory.
     Norway's defence ministry said the missile was part of a
scientific research programme at a civilian rocket range on an island
in the Lofoten region off northern Norway.
     The rocket splashed into the sea off Spitzbergen as planned after
a 24-minute successful flight 1,564 km north of Andoya island, where
the rocket range lies, the ministry said.
     "I was terrified when I heard about the attention our routine
firing got," Kolbjoern Adolfsen, a Norwegian scientist at the range,
told Reuters in a telephone interview. "I was in a meeting when the
telephones started ringing."
     "For 32 years we have done this," he said. "We study the Northern
Lights over Spitzbergen in daytime. It is pitch dark up there at this
time of the year.  We have fired 607 rockets since we started."
     The Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) are colourful light
phenomena in the arctic skies during the winter.
     Adolfsen suggested the Russians might have reacted because the
6.24 a.m.  (0524gmt) launch was the first time a northern light rocket
had gone up in such a high ballistic trajectory, reaching an altitude
of 1,453 kms.
     "But it should not have come as a surprise to anyone," the
57-year-old said. "A message was sent through the foreign ministry on
December 14 to all nations concerned that we would be doing the
firing. Air traffic had been diverted because the rocket would be
flying so high."
     A foreign ministry official said, without having knowledge of
this particular case, that such messages were routinely forwarded to
other nations.
     Interfax quoted a high-ranking Russian air defence official as
saying the missile had landed in the archipelago, Norway's
northernmost arctic outpost, about 1,500 km (930 miles) north of Oslo.
     The Interfax report contradicted an earlier despatch by the news
agency, citing a different source, which said a missile fired from an
unspecified north European country had been shot down by Russian air
defences over Russian territory.
     Adolfsen said Wednesday's firing was part of a Norwegian-American
project financed by Oslo University and NASA, the U.S. space agency.
     Andoya, a craggy island whose main sources of income are fishing
and whale safaris, has a population of 6,500 and the town is six kms
from the rocket range, which has 26 employees and currently about 30
guest researchers.
     "The firing was completely successul," Adolfsen said. "It was a
very good test."

  REUTER

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