With the new launch site will start technique 1960 – Proceedings

Photo: REUTERS / Sergei Remezov

Roscosmos decided in principle to use the new cosmodrome in the Amur Region East spacecraft “Soyuz», created in the 1960s and is now used for the flight to the ISS .

– The first launch of a manned spacecraft from the East is scheduled for 2018 and should be implemented with the help of spacecraft “Soyuz” with the launch complex under construction, which will begin operation in the end of 2015 – said “News” the spokesperson of the Joint Rocket and Space Corporation (ACCD) Mikhail Fadeev.

Using the “Soyuz”, established back in the 60s of last century, with the participation of the founder of Soviet cosmonautics Sergei Korolev, somewhat at odds with the plans that were declared in 2007, when the decision to build the East.

«When we will begin to build new spaceships, we need a new launch vehicle for them, and then raise the question of building a new launching pad “- so in August 2007, explained the meaning of the idea of ​​building a new cosmodrome Anatoly Perminov, head of Roscosmos.

It is in this context that the idea of ​​building a new cosmodrome presented Vladimir Putin, who in November 2007 ordered to allocate 24.7 billion rubles the first to start work on the East and stated that “the East will be the first national spaceport civil use and will serve the new manned transport system and interplanetary complexes.” By the time the president already knew that almost all the major space projects in Russia tend to be implemented with great delay, and starting date indefinitely postponed. Therefore, in the decree on the beginning of the East had been prescribed a specific time frame: in 2015 from the Baikonur should start first rocket with the satellite, and in 2018 there will take place the first manned flight.

Now go to work on the East around the clock – builders in a hurry to fulfill the presidential decree and have time to carry out missile launch the satellite “Lomonosov” in December 2015. Construction is still behind schedule in a few months and start, apparently, will have to endure for the next year. But in any case, 2018 is the official date of the launch of the first manned spacecraft from the East (as in 2015 still remains the official launch date of the first rocket) and Roskosmos intends to carry out a presidential decree. Choice – than to fly – at Roscosmos, in fact, not. Because the new manned transport ship (PTC), which was to be built by 2014, there will be no earlier than 2021. This is evident from the project of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 years, where the first launch vehicle “Angara-5″ with a cargo variant of PTC ship from the East put in the schedule to 2021. A first start PTC with the astronauts is scheduled only for 2024.

The only way to catch in 2018 – proved to run for decades “Union”. All the more so for the flight to the ISS and the other ship is not needed: Now is the time to launch from Baikonur before arriving at the station only six hours.

Dates, as it turned out, already running out: the former leadership of the Russian Space Agency in no hurry to make a decision on the establishment of appropriate infrastructure in the East.

– As head of the Federal Space Agency (this happened in the last month. – “News”), I found that the decision to begin work on the creation of infrastructure for a manned flight to the East was not accepted, – told “Izvestia” head of the Federal Space Agency Igor Komarov. – Accordingly, there was no technical specifications for this project enterprises. We immediately started to plan this work.

If a 2018 manned launches to the ISS will be transferred to the East, the Baikonur respectively, from the same year, will be used in minimal amounts. That is, from the Kazakh Baikonur will start “Proton”, against the exploitation of which, by the way, in Kazakhstan actively objected due to the toxicity of fuel for these carriers. However, the use of a commercial sense “Proton” again come under question because $ 115 million a year from Russia to Kazakhstan for the lease of Baikonur in this case will have to pay only for the right to run the “Proton”.

– Baikonur East was conceived as a tool for high-tech development of the Far East – like Andrew, son of John, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics Tsiolkovsky. – To plan an international spaceport with new technologies. From this perspective, of course, a project to launch out good, but old equipment does not fit into the plan. Especially that the ship will be placed near Moscow, and the rocket in Samara.