MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. The first Su-57 fifth-generation fighters with the advanced second-stage engine will be assembled in 2022, Head of Russia’s state tech corporation Rostec Sergei Chemezov said on Monday.

"We continue work on the second-stage engine. <...> And I hope that somewhere in 2022 the engines will be made and mounted on the planes and we will launch their serial production in the next few years," the Rostec chief said.

Russia is currently holding the flight tests of the second-stage engine aboard the aircraft, Chemezov said. "Several prototypes of the new engine have already been manufactured. Now work is underway to finalize its assemblies and systems."

The second-stage engine codenamed Item 30 will be serial-produced at the UEC-Ufa Engine Production Association (part of the United Engine Corporation within Rostec). The Ufa enterprise earlier manufactured the first prototype of the second-stage engine that entered flight tests in December 2017. It was earlier reported that the serial deliveries of Su-57 fifth-generation fighters fitted out with the new engines would begin in 2023. The second-stage engine will allow the Su-57 fighter to develop supersonic speed without using an afterburner.

The Su-57 is a fifth-generation multirole fighter designed to destroy all types of air, ground and naval targets. The Su-57 fighter jet features stealth technology with the broad use of composite materials, is capable of developing supersonic cruising speed and is furnished with the most advanced onboard radio-electronic equipment, including a powerful onboard computer (the so-called electronic second pilot), the radar system spread across its body and some other innovations, in particular, armament placed inside its fuselage.

The Su-57 took to the skies for the first time on January 29, 2010. Compared to its predecessors, the Su-57 combines the functions of an attack plane and a fighter jet while the use of composite materials and innovation technologies and the fighter’s aerodynamic configuration ensure the low level of radar and infrared signature.

The plane’s armament will include, in particular, hypersonic missiles. The fifth-generation fighter jet has been successfully tested in combat conditions in Syria.