Russian Space Agency Announces Launch Schedule

Excerpt from report by Russian news agency RIA

Moscow, 22 February: Roskosmos [Federal Space Agency] specialists led by the agency’s deputy head Viktor Remishevskiy have completed working on plans for launches of booster rockets in the next three months, a press release posted on Roskosmos’s official website on Wednesday [22 February] says.

The launch timetable and the plan for preparing booster rockets and spacecraft was detailed and cleared with the Space Troops HQ the day before.

Two launches under the manned flight programme will take place at the Baykonur cosmodrome [in Kazakhstan] between March and May 2006. On 30 March, a Soyuz-FG booster rocket with a Soyuz-TMA spaceship will blast off to the International Space Station [ISS] with Expedition 13 crew – commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams – and Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes of visit expedition 10 [Pontes flight designation as received].

On 24 April, a Soyuz booster rocket is due to blast off with a Progress-M resupply craft to deliver food, water and equipment necessary for the work of the ISS crew.

In late March, Roskosmos specialists will start their preparations for the launch of the Resurs-DK spacecraft and a Soyuz booster rocket as part of the Federal Space Programme. For mid- April, work has been scheduled to prepare for the launch of a Soyuz- 2.1a booster rocket and a Metop craft as part of the Starsem programme [commercial launch arm of Soyuz company]. These craft will be launched as early as summer, the press release says.

In mid-April, preparations will start at the Baykonur cosmodrome for the launch of the Hot Bird 8 spacecraft, Proton-M booster rocket and Briz-M booster module under the Khrunichev Centre programme.

Under the Federal Space Programme, a Kompas-2 spacecraft is due to be launched by a Russian navy submarine in the second half of May.

In addition, an Israeli spacecraft will be launched by a Space Troops crew using a Start-1 booster rocket from the Svobodnyy cosmodrome.

[Passage omitted: dates may be changed]

No launches of spacecraft from the Plesetsk cosmodrome are scheduled for the spring period under the Federal Space Programme or other programmes, Roskosmos said.