From today's Toronto Star:
Grand Banks fears U.S. rocket debris
Newfoundland rigs ready to shut down
Urgent calls from Ottawa delay launch
ANDREW MILLS
STAFF REPORTER
OTTAWA—With fears that a United States Air Force booster rocket would soon be heading their way, oil rig workers on Newfoundland's Grand Banks prepared to shut down production and started evacuating to shore yesterday afternoon.
But after a series of emergency telephone calls between Canadian and U.S. officials, the Air Force indefinitely called off the launch of the Titan IV rocket, which, according to a U.S. expert, was likely carrying a spy satellite into space.
But U.S. Air Force Space Command claims the launch is not being postponed to map a new trajectory that would avoid the region surrounding the oil rigs, but for "technical reasons." Once those are resolved, the current plans still have the rocket passing over the Grand Banks, Capt. Joe Macri said from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
Sometime on Wednesday, the Air Force notified Transport Canada that they planned to launch a rocket early Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket would travel north and as it passed over the ocean off Newfoundland, it would drop one of its 12-tonne boosters once that fuel had been used, Defence Minister Bill Graham said yesterday.
Transport Canada followed protocol, passing the message onto the federal emergency operations centre, which informed Newfoundland officials that the rocket was expected to fall within 15 nautical miles of Exxon Mobil's Hibernia oil platform.
It "would be falling into a part of the ocean that was too close for comfort for them to where their Hibernia platform is located," Graham said. The fear was that the debris would crash into the Hibernia rig.
So yesterday morning, Exxon Mobil used helicopters to evacuate 20 non-essential workers from the rig, which sits 315 kilometres east of the Newfoundland shore. The remaining 225 workers prepared to shut down operations and board a vessel to the shore, according to Hibernia spokesperson Margot Bruce-O'Connell.
Workers also planned to evacuate Petro-Canada's Terra Nova platform, and Husky Oil planned to tow its drilling rig out of the area.
Early yesterday, after Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams learned about the rocket, he phoned Anne McLellan, the Deputy Prime Minister and Frank McKenna, Canada's ambassador to the United States, to try to get the launch halted.
"There are safety issues, when you're trying to evacuate upwards of 300 people from rigs out in the middle of the offshore," said Elizabeth Matthews, the premier's spokesperson. "We also had a concern that fisheries is soon going to be starting up again. And ... though secondary to life safety concerns, there were huge financial implications."
It `would be falling into a part of the ocean that was too close for comfort ...'
Defence Minister Bill Graham
If the rigs had to shut down, they would have stayed that way for up to 10 days, at a cost of about $150 million, Matthews said.
McLellan left messages for U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, while Canadian defence officials called their U.S. counterparts to try to stop the launch.
"A point we have made with our American colleagues is look, there's an energy shortage in North America that you're a part of," Graham said. "This is several hundred thousand barrels of oil a day for the North American market. This is in your interest not to allow it to happen."
At first the launch was delayed 48 hours, but late yesterday afternoon, as the evacuation had already begun, Ottawa learned the Air Force had postponed the rocket launch indefinitely.
"It allows them to look at, to calculate a new trajectory or whatever else they're going to do," Graham said. "But in any event it's no longer 48 hours threatening us, it's an indefinite period of time to allow the political as well as the military consideration to be taken into account."
The Air Force referred any questions surrounding the evacuation to the U.S. State Department, which declined to comment.
The rocket was to carry a payload belonging to the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, Macri said.
The classified payload is likely a spy satellite, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, who tracks all space launches.
Though we won't know for sure until after the launch, McDowell wrote in an email that the satellite might use radar or monitor radio signals in an effort to intercept enemy communications.
"We hope to figure out a bit more about it after the launch," he wrote. "Military launches up the east coast past Newfoundland are often destined for a special high orbit called `Molniya orbit' which goes between latitudes 63 degrees north and south; occasionally though they are used for spy satellites in lower orbits."
Grand Banks fears U.S. rocket debris
Newfoundland rigs ready to shut down
Urgent calls from Ottawa delay launch
ANDREW MILLS
STAFF REPORTER
OTTAWA—With fears that a United States Air Force booster rocket would soon be heading their way, oil rig workers on Newfoundland's Grand Banks prepared to shut down production and started evacuating to shore yesterday afternoon.
But after a series of emergency telephone calls between Canadian and U.S. officials, the Air Force indefinitely called off the launch of the Titan IV rocket, which, according to a U.S. expert, was likely carrying a spy satellite into space.
But U.S. Air Force Space Command claims the launch is not being postponed to map a new trajectory that would avoid the region surrounding the oil rigs, but for "technical reasons." Once those are resolved, the current plans still have the rocket passing over the Grand Banks, Capt. Joe Macri said from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
Sometime on Wednesday, the Air Force notified Transport Canada that they planned to launch a rocket early Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket would travel north and as it passed over the ocean off Newfoundland, it would drop one of its 12-tonne boosters once that fuel had been used, Defence Minister Bill Graham said yesterday.
Transport Canada followed protocol, passing the message onto the federal emergency operations centre, which informed Newfoundland officials that the rocket was expected to fall within 15 nautical miles of Exxon Mobil's Hibernia oil platform.
It "would be falling into a part of the ocean that was too close for comfort for them to where their Hibernia platform is located," Graham said. The fear was that the debris would crash into the Hibernia rig.
So yesterday morning, Exxon Mobil used helicopters to evacuate 20 non-essential workers from the rig, which sits 315 kilometres east of the Newfoundland shore. The remaining 225 workers prepared to shut down operations and board a vessel to the shore, according to Hibernia spokesperson Margot Bruce-O'Connell.
Workers also planned to evacuate Petro-Canada's Terra Nova platform, and Husky Oil planned to tow its drilling rig out of the area.
Early yesterday, after Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams learned about the rocket, he phoned Anne McLellan, the Deputy Prime Minister and Frank McKenna, Canada's ambassador to the United States, to try to get the launch halted.
"There are safety issues, when you're trying to evacuate upwards of 300 people from rigs out in the middle of the offshore," said Elizabeth Matthews, the premier's spokesperson. "We also had a concern that fisheries is soon going to be starting up again. And ... though secondary to life safety concerns, there were huge financial implications."
It `would be falling into a part of the ocean that was too close for comfort ...'
Defence Minister Bill Graham
If the rigs had to shut down, they would have stayed that way for up to 10 days, at a cost of about $150 million, Matthews said.
McLellan left messages for U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, while Canadian defence officials called their U.S. counterparts to try to stop the launch.
"A point we have made with our American colleagues is look, there's an energy shortage in North America that you're a part of," Graham said. "This is several hundred thousand barrels of oil a day for the North American market. This is in your interest not to allow it to happen."
At first the launch was delayed 48 hours, but late yesterday afternoon, as the evacuation had already begun, Ottawa learned the Air Force had postponed the rocket launch indefinitely.
"It allows them to look at, to calculate a new trajectory or whatever else they're going to do," Graham said. "But in any event it's no longer 48 hours threatening us, it's an indefinite period of time to allow the political as well as the military consideration to be taken into account."
The Air Force referred any questions surrounding the evacuation to the U.S. State Department, which declined to comment.
The rocket was to carry a payload belonging to the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, Macri said.
The classified payload is likely a spy satellite, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, who tracks all space launches.
Though we won't know for sure until after the launch, McDowell wrote in an email that the satellite might use radar or monitor radio signals in an effort to intercept enemy communications.
"We hope to figure out a bit more about it after the launch," he wrote. "Military launches up the east coast past Newfoundland are often destined for a special high orbit called `Molniya orbit' which goes between latitudes 63 degrees north and south; occasionally though they are used for spy satellites in lower orbits."