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New Roscosmos chief to inspect construction of Vostochy spaceport

About 5,000 people are currently engaged in the building operations

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

UGLEGORSK,Amur Region, October 23 (Itar-Tass) - The new chief of Roscosmos (Federal Space Agency), Oleg Ostapenko, arrived in Amur Region on Wednesday. In Blagoveshchensk, he conferred with Region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako and then proceeded on his way to Uglegorsk to inspect cosmodrome Vostochny (eastern).

Ostapenko together with a group of specialists is planning to inspect the launch and engineering complex of the cosmodrome being built here, the building operation base, and review the process of building a residential development estate and a builders' township, an official in the press service of the Amur Region government said.

A conference is also to be held here to discuss matters relating to construction and environmental monitoring problems. The first launch from the cosmodrome Vostochy is scheduled for 2015, and the first manned spaceship launch is slated for 2018. About 5,000 people are currently engaged in the building operations.

Earlier, speaking at an informational meeting in Blagoveshchensko on the operation and environmental safety of the cosmodrome in Uglegosk, Andrei Voronin, deputy head of a Rodcosmos department, said an area of the fall of the first staged of space rockets of Soyuz family, which are to be launched from Vostochy, had been already determined. "The space rocket stages falling area is located 345 km away from Uglegorsk, between Zeya and Tynda Districts. The area was thoroughly surveyed. It was last surveyed in February. Samples of water, vegetation, and soil were taken at eleven control points," Voronin pointed out.

Voronin said specialists assume the possibility of "an insignificant inflammability in the rocket stage falling area". Specialists of the Avia Forestp Protection will handle possible inflammations. Large fragments of metal are to be airlifted from the site of falling.

Voronin also mentioned other areas where space rocket stages would fall: Magadan Region, Khabarovsk Territory, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and a land sector near the Tartary Strait. "We choose areas that are very thinly populated," the Roscosmos official emphasized.

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