Shaba North

- 7.929166666666728.53Koordinaten: 7 ° 55 ' 45 "S, 28 ° 31' 48" E

North Shaba ( other name: Kapani Tonneo ) is a former missile launch - site in the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. From there, three suborbital test flights took place.

The site had a total area of ​​100,000 km ². This represents about 4 % of the entire national territory and exceeds the area of ​​Austria. The area consisted largely of a 1300 m high plateau on the river Luvua. On 9 December 1975, the Government of the State of Zaire rented this area to the German company OTRAG. The contract was to run until the year 2000.

OTRAG built on a steep cliff a starting place to test the commercial rocket OTRAG. The first launch of North Shaba took place on 17 May 1977 and served the test of the drive units. The six -meter-long rocket rose up to 20 km altitude.

The second launch took place on the night of May 20, 1978. This time the rocket reached an altitude of 150 km.

However, a third starting on 5 June 1978 in the presence of the heads of state Mobutu Sese Seko proved to be a failure. Although the 12 -meter-long rocket rose to 10 km altitude, but came off course and crashed.

Well to international pressure, the government announced Zaire the lease on 15 April 1979, OTRAG had to give up the launch site. Further tests of OTRAG rocket took place in the Seba Oasis in Libya since 1981.