New Russian Space Center to Be Ready By 2016: Deputy PM

New Russian space center to be ready by 2016: deputy PM

MOSCOW, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) — The new space center to be built inRussia’s far eastern region will be put into use for rocket launches by 2016 and manned missions by 2018, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Wednesday.

“The new space center should be ready for launching any space rockets by 2016, and plans are to launch a program of manned flights from the center in 2018,” Ivanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

The Vostochny space center will be built on the site of an existing space facility, known as Svobodny, in the Amur region.

Russia now launches its manned flights and many of its satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the barren steppes of northern Kazakhstan, a Soviet-built facility it leases for 115 million U.S. dollars annually.

Under an agreement signed in 2004, Russia will continue to lease the base in Kazakhstan until 2050. But Russia said in 2006 it would pull out its military personnel from Baikonur for relocation to a base in northern Russia.

(c) 2008 Xinhua News Agency – CEIS. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.