[FPSPACE] Interfax: Launch Of New Angara Rocket Delayed By A Year

[James Oberg]

Launch Of New Angara Rocket Delayed By A Year

Moscow Interfax-AVN Online in English 1255 GMT 18 Nov 09

   MOSCOW. Nov 18 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Angara new-generation space launch vehicle will be able to blast off from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk region no earlier than 2012, a source in the space rocket sector told Interfax-AVN.

    "A launch pad for Angara rockets was supposed to be ready in Plesetsk in 2010, which would have allowed us to launch light and heavy rockets in the first and third quarters of 2011. However, such launches will be able to take place no earlier than 2012 because the deadline for putting the launch pad and maintenance facilities into operation has been delayed," the source said.

   The construction of the launch pad's key facilities has almost been completed, but efforts to assemble equipment in a majority of the center's facilities have not yet begun, he said.

   "The budget of the project intended to complete the construction of the space center was seriously reduced in 2009. As a result, construction efforts at nearly all facilities were mothballed in June. They are expected to be resumed in 2010, when the project will receive all of the allocated funds," the source said.

   The Angara development project has been proceeding according to schedule, he said.

   "Firing trials of the universal rocket pod held this summer confirmed its declared characteristics," he said.

   Preparations for flight trials of the light-weight version of the Angara space launch vehicle were expected to begin at the end of 2010, and the launch of the first such rocket was scheduled to take place in 2011, a spokesman for Russia's Space Forces said earlier.

   The first heavy Angara rocket was expected to take off in late 2011, he said.

   The four-member family of Angara launch vehicles designed by the Khrunichev state research and production center includes rockets ranging from light-weight versions capable of placing from 1.7 tonnes to 3.7 tonnes of cargo into low orbits to heavy versions capable of carrying up to 28.5 tonnes of cargo. These launch vehicles use a rocket module equipped with an RD-191 engine powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen. Angara rockets carrying heavy satellites will take off from the Plesetsk center. Today, such satellites can be launched only from the Baikonur space center, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan.

   Russia has to receive the Kazakh authorities' consent when it plans each launch of Proton-M heavy rockets because they use toxic fuel components. 
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