Yonkastic Space Agency

The Yonkastic Space Agency (YSA) is the space agency of the Republic of the Yonkage. It is headed by a Secretary directly answerable to the legislature and its budget for FY 2018 was $3.79 billion USD, approximately 24 percent of the national budget. This high budget has been met with success, as the YSA has successfully launched a half dozen satellites and three crewed missions into Low Earth Orbit.

Background
Starting in the late 1990s, the world began to explore the feasibility of long-term human inhabitation of space. To this end, the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, the EU, and Canada began collaborating on the International Space Station. The Yonkage sought to get in on the action.

Creation of the Yonkastic Space Agency
The Supreme Yonk of the Yonkage at the time, Äskale Yentwek, had been swept into office in the fallout of the 1996 general elections. The elections saw the Yonkastic Communist Party, led by Yentwek, sweep into power at the head of a coalition of nationalist and far-left parties. To satisfy the nationalist elements of his political base, Yentwek began a campaign to establish a domestic space agency, giving the now-famous "Moon Speech" of 1998 in which he stated that "being uninvolved in the great adventures of the day... goes against everything dear to the hearts of the Yonkastic people. The Republic of the Yonkage will not be left behind while imperialists push on ahead. We choose to go to the Moon, and we will do it before they do so again."

Eventually the Congress of the Yonkage, by near unanimous consent, passed the Space Act of 1999, setting up the Yonkastic Space Agency as an organ of the government, headed by a Secretary answerable to the legislature in accordance with the Yonkastic Constitution. The Space Act was received with overwhelming approval and its passage cemented the ruling coalition, keeping Yentwek in power after the 1999 elections.

Building up the Agency
In 2000, Supreme Yonk Yentwek negotiated a bilateral agreement with the People's Republic of China, whereby the PRC agreed to provide the Yonkage with the schematics for several primitive ballistic missile types in exchange for raw materials and diplomatic support in the United Nations. The schematics were analyzed extensively by the growing staff of the YSA, which designed the Gimp-1 Launch Vehicle and proposed it to the Congress in 2002.

By 2002, however, Supreme Yonk Yentwek's opponents on all fronts, from economic policy to international relations, had coalesced into a single coalition centered on the Conservative Party. The Conservative-led coalition swept the polls in the 2002 elections, and Supreme Yonk Yentwek actually lost his seat in Congress, resulting in the near-total disintegration of the Yonkastic Communist Party, which held a total of seven seats after the elections. The result was a reversal of the agreement with the PRC, which denounced the actions of the Yonkage to no avail. While the schematics were returned, the YSA kept the designs for the Gimp-1.

Nevertheless, the program languished with a lack of funding until the 2008 elections saw the Liberal Party assemble a coalition centered on the YSA and education reform. Pentäch Oliksten, the Minority Leader at the time, gave an impassioned speech in which he urged the Yonkastic people to "gaze to the stars... and there will be nothing that we cannot do, either at home or across the trackless oceans of the world."

Oliksten's Liberal Coalition swept the election in a landslide even more overwhelming than the Conservative victory of 2002. True to his word, Oliksten increased federal funding for the program to a whopping 25 percent, more or less where it remains today. The YSA delivered, and the first Gimp-1 Launch Vehicle was rolled out onto the pad at Kelänsen Spaceport in 2010.

Project Stargazer
In early 2009, before work on the Gimp-1 had even finished, a plan was presented to Supreme Yonk Oliksten calling for ten satellites to be launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on a variety of missions, from climate science to radio-band telescopes. Oliksten reportedly skimmed the proposal a single time before approving it and formally launching the Yonkastic Space Program.

The first mission, Stargazer 1, launched on July 18, 2010. It carried a simple and relatively cheap ($850,000 USD) satellite to an altitude of 110 kilometers, the sole purpose of which was to observe the Earth in true-color video in real time. The resulting video feed is posted on the YSA's official webpage and has been watched by the entire population of the Yonkage. The booster was allowed to crash into the Pacific Ocean, the only time that a booster has been deliberately discarded.

Stargazer 2 was a repeat of Stargazer 1 with a handful of modifications to the mission parameters. The probe, launched on January 10, 2011, was lifted to an altitude of 150 kilometers, well above the Kármán Line and the atmospheric drag that orbits close to that altitude entail. The YSA attempted to land the booster on a remote launchpad high in the Tänth Mountains south of Kelänsen. However, a defect in one of the fins led the rocket to careen out of control, shooting over downtown Kelänsen (home of around 200,000 people) at speeds well over Mach 1. An SAM battery was able to shoot down the rocket before it crashed into the city, but the episode was quite literally burned into the popular culture of Kelänsen.

Stargazers 3, 4, 5, and 6 were launched on May 12, 2011, June 14, 2011, July 16, 2011, and August 18, 2012. In all cases, the boosters were recovered. A lengthy delay occurred in between the launches of Stargazer 5 and Stargazer 6 due to the complex nature of Stargazer 6, which launched a Humbug Spacecraft into LEO for the first time. After the booster was successfully recovered, the Humbug completed twenty orbits of the Earth before firing its boosters and reentering the Pacific Ocean within sight of Senkäla.

With the success of Stargazer 6, a majority of Congress (parts of which had been won back by the Conservatives in the 2011 elections) voted to terminate the program and shift focus to Project Icarus.

Project Icarus
After the success of Stargazer 6, the YSA proceeded to certify the Gimp-1 Launch Vehicle for human spaceflight. All the large engineering associations of the Yonkage were contacted during a period of public input that lasted until June of 2013. The YSA also had NASA and Roscosmos examine the Gimp-1 for any design flaws. The two Gimp-1 rockets operational at the time were remodeled, and the remaining Gimp-1 under construction was redesigned during the construction process. By 2015, the YSA's Gimp-1 fleet was ready to fly.

The first of the Icarus missions was launched on October 4, 2015, the 58th anniversary of Sputnik Day, when the Soviet Union launched humanity's first artificial satellite. It carried three Yonkastic astronauts - Elenda Känwell, Üskayen Pälentik, and Soaküsk Ishpen – into orbit, making the Republic of the Yonkage one of four countries (the others being the US, Russia, and the PRC) to do so.

The next two Icarus missions have been similar to the first, launching on November 17, 2016 (the 75th anniversary of the Yonakge) and May 1, 2018. Both missions served as preparation for the upcoming lunar missions; Supreme Yonk Oleksten has repeatedly committed the country to landing a person on the moon by the late 2020s.

The Icarus Program is expected to continue until late 2025, at which point the lunar program will be pursued in earnest, according to YSA Secretary Gästanek Intäch.

Project Chair to the Sun
The Yonkastic Space Agency has recently committed itself to launching a chair into orbit around the Sun and returning it to the Earth. The rationale for such a mission is unknown at the present time, though many non-agency authorities on the subject have stated that "the program... might be a stepping stone for manned flights to Mars and beyond" but tend to agree that it is "probably a question of international prestige."

Inventory and Economic Situation
The Yonkastic Space Agency currently owns and operates three Gimp-1 Launch Vehicles. The vehicle is mostly reusable, dramatically lowering operating costs. The YSA is also in the process of constructing an additional Gimp-1 to increase its launch capacity. The type is expected to remain in service until the conclusion of Project Icarus sometime in late 2025, after which point the new design currently under development is expected to take over.

The YSA's material requirements have been provided for through the thrifty use of contracts and grants, keeping the cost of refueling a Gimp-1 down to under $100,000 USD, for example. Despite this, the Agency has required a significant proportion of the national budget each year to continue operating, attracting criticism from some branches of the Conservative-led minority and economy-oriented pundits.