vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #604 / Special reports / Reading article...

Construction of the first component of the space launch center ‘Vostochny’ to be built near the town of Uglegorsk in the Amur region is planned to start this year, the region’s Vice Governor Nikolai Sevastyanov announced Tuesday.

The ambitious project, expected to take ten years and a total of 186 billion rubles ($7.6 billion), will provide Russia with its own space launch facility, news reports cited Sevastyanov as saying. Currently, Russian spaceships lift off from the leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a facility originally built in the Soviet Union.

According to Sevastyanov, the center will be ready to launch light- and medium-class unmanned spacecrafts by 2015, while in 2018 it is planned to start launching heavy boosters able to haul 30-40 ton objects into orbit.

Along with various technical space launch equipment to be built in the town of Uglegorsk, the project will also involve constructing lodging and cultural facilities for the space center workers.

By the end of 2008, all organizational details on the ‘Vostochny’ center will be settled at the federal level, a press statement from the Amur administration said. Building an airport will become the first large scale priority of the project.

According to Sevastyanov, up to 25,000 specialists will be required to man the spaceship launch center upon its completion. Part of the work force will arrive from various regions in Russia and former CIS countries, while specialists from the Amur region will comprise the major part.

Meanwhile, Russia’s leading technical universities will start educating specialists for further work at ‘Vostochny’. Six universities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Kazan and Yekaterinburg have agreed to enroll students from the Amur region to prepare future personnel for the center, Sevastyanov said.

The decree to construct a space launch center ‘Vostochny’ was signed by President Vladimir Putin in November 2007. The facility will be built at the site of the ‘Svobodny’ space center, which was put out of operation in the beginning of 2007 due to the lack of future prospects for development.