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Russia to carry out three test-launches of Angara light carrier rocket

By now, two qualification test-launches have been carried out, according to Aerospace Force Commander-in-Chief Sergei Surovikin

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The flight tests of the latest Angara-1.2 light carrier rocket will require three test-launches, Aerospace Force Commander-in-Chief Sergei Surovikin said on Friday.

"As part of the experimental design work, the flight tests of the Angara space rocket are taking place. They envisage six launches of the Angara-A5 heavy rocket and three launches of the Angara-1.2 light carrier," Surovikin said in an interview with the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

By now, two qualification test-launches have been carried out, he specified.

"Until the end of this year, a new qualification launch of the Angara-A5 heavy carrier rocket is scheduled and the preparation for it has been organized in an established procedure," he explained.

The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It consists of light, medium and heavy carrier rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tonnes. The new family of rockets uses environmentally-friendly propellant components. So far, Russia has carried out only two Angara launches, both of them from the Plesetsk spaceport: a light Angara-1.2PP blasted off in July 2014 and its heavy version lifted off in December 2014.

Spokesman for the Maximov Space Systems Research Institute (a branch of the Khrunichev Space Center) Yuri Klimenko earlier said that the Angara-A5 heavy rocket would be launched six times as part of its flight tests.