MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. Specialists of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and contractor organisations have assembled about 60% of the launch system for the Soyuz-2 rockets at the Vostochny cosmodrome that is under construction in the Russian Far East. The work should be completed in July, Roscosmos press service told TASS on Wednesday.
The launch system is designed for installing a rocket, keeping it in a vertical position and preparations for the launch and the launch itself, as well as and for launch vehicle utility lines.
"Eight sectors of the support ring of the launch system have already been installed. The manufacturer plant has made the control assembly of the complex equipment," the agency said.
Roscosmos said that all the necessary equipment had already been delivered to the launch site, and its installation would begin immediately after the commissioning of the necessary facilities. At the moment, 34% of the equipment has been installed in nearly 60 premises of the launch complex, the press service said.
The Vostochy cosmodrome is being built near the Uglegorsk town in the Amur region that will soon get the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The complex will include two launch facilities, an aerodrome, cosmonauts’ flight training facilities, an oxygen-nitrogen plant and hydrogen plant, 115 kilometres of automobile roads and 125 kilometres of railways and other facilities. The first rocket to be launched from Vostochny is to be the Soyuz-2.1a, made by the Progress Rocket and Space Centre. The carrier rocket will place into orbit the Samara satellite Aist-2, the SamSat-218 nanosatellite of the Samara State Aerospace University and the Lomonosov satellite of Moscow State University (MGU).