MOSCOW, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- In November 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on developing a new launch vehicle.
The Russian Space Agency -- Roskosmos -- plans to announce the relevant tender in the next few days. After it becomes operational, the rocket will lift off from the Vostochny, or Eastern, space center in the Amur Region in the Russian Far East.
However, Russia has failed to develop the Angara launch vehicle, the main element of the proposed rocket, or a new-generation manned spacecraft in the last 10 years. This and the creation of the Vostochny space center are seen as the major problems.
Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said the location of the new space center would be chosen next year. It will start launching automatic spacecraft in 2013 and the first manned missions would lift off from there in 2018. Ivanov stressed that the proposed space center will feature entirely new facilities and will launch next-generation rockets.
But it is unclear whether the Vostochny space center will become operational in 2009. Moreover, the Angara rocket still remains on the drawing board.
After the Soviet Union disintegrated in December 1991, Russia came to realize that it could no longer implement independent space programs. Before 1992, the Soviet Union launched all heavy-duty Proton rockets, as well as geostationary early-warning and telecommunications satellites from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
But the situation changed after Kazakhstan became independent and Russia now has to pay $115 million a year to use Baikonur. To make things worse, Russian national security now depends on the whims of a foreign state.
On Sept. 15, 1992, the Russian government signed a resolution on developing the heavy-duty Angara launch vehicle. After much debate, it was decided to launch the new rocket from the Plesetsk space center, a former intercontinental ballistic missile base in the Arkhangelsk Region in northern Russia.
Unfortunately, Plesetsk is notorious for its high launch costs and does not compare well with equatorial space centers that can launch 100 percent heavier payloads.
Soviet generals who had chosen Plesetsk as the best possible location for launching a possible counterstrike against the United States across the North Pole never thought that space satellites would eventually lift off from there.
In the 1990s, the Russian government opted for Plesetsk with a ramified infrastructure and because it believed that separate Angara launch pads would prove too expensive.
In 1994, the Moscow-based Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center won a contract for developing the Angara-26 heavy duty launch vehicle that could orbit 26-ton payloads. In January and August 1995, President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian government issued a decree and resolution on developing the new rocket.
However, the Russian Aerospace Agency -- Rosaviakosmos -- lost interest in the Angara vehicle because Moscow and Kazakhstan had settled their differences on using the Baikonur space center by the mid-1990s.
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(Yury Zaitsev is an academic adviser with the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.
This article is reprinted by permission of the RIA Novosti news agency. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
