Russia to kick off construction of a new spaceport

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10698433

Russia will invest US $800m (£527m) into a new spaceport in the country’s Far East, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced.

The move is meant to ease the dependence on the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, built during the Soviet-era.

The future cosmodrome will be built near the town of Uglegorsk in the Far Eastern Amur region, close to the border with China.

It is planned to be mostly used for civilian launches and should be operational by 2015.

“The government has made a decision to earmark 24.7 billion rubles ($809m) over the next three years for the start of the full-blown construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome,” Mr Putin said.

Vostochny means “eastern” in Russian.

The head of Russia’s federal space agency, Roscosmos Anatoly Perminov, said that up to 30,000 specialists would build the new space launch facility.

He also noted that it will be smaller than Baikonur, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.

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russia is till very fixed on space..with the shuttles being archived there is an opportunty for something to fill the hole..

401

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~ by seeker401 on July 25, 2010.