PATRIOT PARK /Moscow Region/, August 14. /TASS/. The ground tests of the latest Rokot-M carrier rocket will be completed next year, First Deputy CEO of the Khrunichev Center (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) Denis Deniskin said at the Army 2023 international arms show on Monday.

"The ground tests [of the Rokot-M launch vehicle] will be completed next year, with the first launch in 2024," the Khrunichev executive said.

The Khrunichev Center’s materials presented at the Army military-technical forum in August 2018 said that the company was working on the Rokot-2 carrier rocket with a new control system to replace the Ukrainian equipment installed on Rokot rockets. The launch was initially planned for 2022.

Khrunichev Center CEO Alexey Varochko told TASS in May last year that specialists had come to the conclusion after a detailed audit that measures were also required to bring into order the rest of the Rokot equipment that had long been in operation and used up its potential. That is why, the first launch of a Rokot-M carrier rocket from the Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia was planned for 2024. The production of the first such rocket had already begun, he said.

The Army 2023 international military-technical forum is running at the Patriot Congress and Exhibition Center, the Alabino training ground and the Kubinka airfield outside Moscow on August 14-20. About 1,500 leading Russian defense enterprises and 85 foreign companies and businesses from seven countries are participating in the forum’s expositions and business program.

The forum has been organized by the Russian Defense Ministry. TASS is the forum’s strategic media partner.