MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. Russian specialists are developing an emergency system for the new Amur reusable methane-powered rocket that will divert the carrier from the launch pad in case of an incident upon its lift-off, Chief Expert of the Roscosmos Long-Term Programs Department and the Sfera Program responsible for the Amur-LNG project Igor Pshenichnikov told TASS on Monday.

"We are planning to implement the system of diversion and hot spare in the Amur carrier rocket," he said.

If one of the engines breaks down, it will be switched off while the operation of other thrusters will be boosted. In this situation, an option of continuing the mission is even considered. "In this case, it won’t be possible to return the stage and it will fly in its expendable mode," the chief expert explained.

If a failure occurs during a lift-off or close to the ground, it won’t be possible to launch the rocket due to its large mass. That is why, the rocket will be diverted to a safe distance not to damage the launch pad, he said.

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos and the Progress Space Rocket Center signed a contract in October last year on the conceptual designing of a space rocket system with Russia’s Amur first reusable methane-fueled rocket. The rocket will get a reusable first stage and will be launched from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East.

In February, Director of the Progress Space Rocket Center (part of Roscosmos) Dmitry Baranov said that the work on the conceptual design of the Amur methane-fueled rocket was due to be completed in the third quarter of 2021.

The Amur is a commercial carrier rocket. With its reusable stage, it will be capable of delivering up to 10.5 tonnes of payload into a low near-Earth orbit compared to 8.5 tonnes carried by Soyuz-2 rockets.