YEKATERINBURG, July 10. /TASS/. A space rocket center for sending tourists into outer space can be built in Russia already in five years, the Urals-based Automatics Research and Production Enterprise, which is developing the control system for this project, announced on Tuesday.

Enterprise Chief Andrei Misyura and Deputy CEO of Kosmotur Sergei Yakovlev signed an agreement at the Innoprom international industrial exhibition in Yekaterinburg on Tuesday on creating control systems for the compound designed to send tourists into outer space, TASS reports from the scene.

"We are planning to create a [rocket] compound in five years," Misyura said.

"This is a possibility to enter a new market," he said, without specifying the project’s details.

According to Kosmotur CEO Yakovlev, the agreement signed with the Automatics Research and Production Enterprise at the Innoprom exhibition will make it possible to create a space compound for sending tourists into the Earth’s orbit.

"I am confident that we will get the result, which everyone will see in several years and the Automatics Research and Production Enterprise will be able to expand its commercial market," Yakovlev added.

As was reported earlier, Kosmotur, which is developing a reusable spacecraft for suborbital flights, planned to submit the space vehicle’s preliminary design to Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos for an expert study in April-May.

Under the preliminary design, the company worked on various technical nuances. It was reported that the launch weight of the designed rocket would equal up to 80 tonnes while the spacecraft with humans would weigh 7 tonnes. Oxygen and alcohol are expected to be used as the basic components of fuel for the new rocket and nitrogen as the accompanying fuel.

The Innoprom international industrial exhibition runs in Yekaterinburg in the Urals on July 9-12. The exhibition has its focus on digital production. South Korea is a partner of Innoprom-2018 while Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry is the exhibition’s organizer.