Russia to Test-Launch New Carrier Rocket Next Year

Excerpt from report in English by Russian news agency Interfax- AVN web site

Moscow, 9 November: Russia has scheduled the first test launch of the Soyuz-2-1B carrier rocket with a new third-stage engine for 2006, the Russian Federal Space Agency [FSA] reported on Tuesday [9 October].

“The new third-stage engine will add more than a tonne to the lifting capacity of the next derivative of the Russian Soyuz-2 carrier rocket, named Soyuz-2-1B,” the report reads. According to it, the first test launch of the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket, performed at the Plesetsk cosmodrome on Monday, is of great importance. “The Soyuz-2 carrier rocket is intended for ensuring Russia’s completely independent access to space,” the report stresses.

The press service said that all components of the new rocket are made in Russia and that the rocket ensures orbiting of all kinds of medium spacecraft from Plesetsk. It added that specifications of all rocket stages were improved as a result of Soyuz’s modernization. A new digital control system was developed to ensure precise orbiting of payload, and new telemetric systems were introduced.

[Passage omitted: quote from FSA head, reported earlier]