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Russia's Defense Ministry to receive 2nd heavy Angara rocket in late 2015

The carrier rockets of the Angara family are intended to replace the Proton carrier rockets

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The second heavy Angara-A5 carrier rocket will be handed over to the Russian military at the end of this year, Angara general designer Vladimir Nesterov told TASS on Wednesday.

“Under the contract the second heavy Angara rocket will be handed to the client [Russian Defense Ministry] at the end of this year,” Nesterov said.

In reply to a question whether the second launch of the Angara will be made in 2016 Nesterov noted that the Defense Ministry should decide on this as a customer, particularly when it will be launched and which payload it will have.

After the payload is determined “a very long process of adaptation of the spacecraft [as a payload] to the carrier rocket will be conducted,” he said.

The new Russian Angara A5 heavy-load rocket was successfully test-launched on December 23, 2014. The Angara rocket family is a new generation of space launch vehicles based on a universal rocket module with oxygen-kerosene engines. The payload capacity ranges from 3.8 to 35 tons. The carrier rockets of the Angara family are intended to replace the Proton carrier rockets.