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Russia Reports Milestone in Project to Build New-Generation Space Rocket

Posted on: Sunday, 9 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Severodvinsk (Arkhangelsk Region), 9 October: The shipbuilders of the Zvezdochka machinery plant, which specializes in the repair and scrapping of ships and nuclear submarines, have successfully mastered a new kind of production. At a ceremony today, a launch pad [startovyy stol] for the Angara space rocket complex was handed over by them to the customer, the Khrunichev State Space Scientific and Production Centre [GKNPTs].

"The work we have done has opened up a new avenue for us. It is the implementation of the space programme," Zvezdochka's director- general, Nikolay Kalistratov, announced.

The giant launch pad, 14 metres long and wide and more than five metres high, has been built immaculately. It consists of 16 huge blocks that weigh between 20 and 50 tonnes. The structure is now to be dismantled and taken to the Plesetsk cosmodrome, where it is to be installed at the launch complex. The plan is for Zvezdochka people also to take part in the assembly of the pad and in its autonomous tests.

"The creation of the Angara launch complex will ensure Russia's independent access to outer space from Plesetsk, its very first cosmodrome," Vladimir Ivanov, GKNPTs's deputy director-general, underlined.

The Angara space rocket complex is absolutely unrivalled for its reliability and environmental safety, its developers at GKNPTs believe. This new-generation booster rocket will replace the Proton, the heavy-class mainstay of the Russian space sector.

The Russian defence minister, Sergey Ivanov, said earlier that the Angara would be 20 per cent more effective than the Proton. Its operation is highly automated and it does not require a large number of service personnel in launch position as the booster rocket is made ready and launched.

The first launch of an Angara from Plesetsk is scheduled for 2008.

[Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1200 gmt 9 Oct 05 added: "The [Angara] complex has been developed by the Khrunichev centre in collaboration with KBMT [Transport Machines Design Bureau], Energomash NPO [Energy Machines scientific and production association] and other space-sector enterprises in Russia.

"The Angara's universal-module design allows light, medium and heavy-class booster rockets to be made up of them to launch payloads that range between 1.7-4 t (light-class booster rockets) and 30 t (medium-class and heavy-class booster rockets)."

The first launch of an Angara-5 rocket with a payload for the Russian government as its customer is due to be made towards the end of 2006, Interfax added. It also said that, under an agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan, the Bayterek space rocket complex will be built at the Russia-leased Baykonur space centre in Kazakhstan to launch the Angara from there.]

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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