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Russia has no plans of launching Dnepr missiles from Yasny launch base in 2015

"There will be no more test launches of the RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles under the Dnepr programme in 2015," said the source

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Strategic Missile Force has no plans for launching the Russian-Ukrainian conversion missile Dnepr from the Yasny base in the Orenburg Region this year, a source at the Strategic Missile Force headquarters has told the media.

"There will be no more launches of the inter-continental ballistic missiles RS-20 under the Dnepr program this year," the source said.

TASS has obtained no official confirmation yet.

The source recalled that the Dnepr program envisaged the disposal of missiles with expiring life cycles and simultaneous launches of payloads in orbit.

Dnepr is a three-stage liquid propellant delivery vehicle. The first and second stages are standard components of the ballistic missile RS-20. Conversion missiles are launched form the Baikonur space site in Kazakhstan and the Yasny base, near Orenburg. The latest launch was at the end of March 2015.

Earlier, Roscosmos said it was suspending the launches of Dnepr rockets. A short while later the general director of the Kosmotras company, which is responsible for upgrading the RS-20B missile, Aleksandr Serkin, said that all obligations to put foreign satellites under the previously concluded contracts would be fulfilled. Russian space agency Roscosmos spokesman Igor Burenkov confirmed that.

Serkin said that two more launches were due in 2015 apart from the one in March. According to the Kosmotras website, the company has contracts for five launches in 2016-2017.