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Russia launches 2nd stage of Vostochny spaceport construction

The launch of an Angara rocket from the new pad is expected in 2021

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, August 21. /TASS/. The construction of a launch pad for the Angara carrier rocket is underway at the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East, according to the materials presented by the Khrunichev Space Center at the Army-2018 international military and technical forum on Tuesday.

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Second launch pad at Vostochny spaceport may take 45 months to build

"Work is underway at the Vostochny spaceport to build infrastructure for preparing launches of Angara carrier rockets and the universal launch compound of the Amur space and rocket center," the materials say.

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos earlier said that a contract with the construction company Kazan for building the second stage of the Vostochny cosmodrome would be signed in late August and work would begin in early September.

Roscosmos earlier said that the construction of the launch pad for the Angara carrier rocket at the Vostochny spaceport should begin in June 2018. Before that, there were plans to start the launch pad’s construction in early 2018, about which then-Head of the Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Rano Dhurayeva told TASS in November 2017. Technological equipment for the construction was delivered to the cosmodrome in August last year. The launch of an Angara rocket from the new pad is expected in 2021.

The first launch site at the Vostochny space center was built in 2012-2016 for Soyuz rockets and the first launch from it was carried out on April 28, 2016.

The Army-2018 international military and technical forum is opening in Kubinka outside Moscow on Tuesday and will run through August 26.

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