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Russia to create Angara-A5P rocket for manned space launches by 2024

According to Roscosmos' head, in 2023, the expendable version of the Oryol spacecraft will blast off while its reusable model will travel to outer space in 2024 and its crewed modification in 2025

OMSK, November 6. /TASS/. The first Angara-A5P carrier rocket intended to orbit Oryol new manned spacecraft will be manufactured at the Omsk-based Polyot enterprise in Siberia by 2024, Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday.

"In 2023, the expendable version of the Oryol spacecraft will blast off while its reusable model will travel to outer space in 2024 and its crewed modification in 2025. The Angara-A5P will be ready by 2024," the Roscosmos chief said.

Head of the Khrunichev Space Center (the developer of the Angara rocket) Alexei Varochko said this was the first spacecraft that would be manufactured by the Omsk factory "with its own logbook."

The Oryol spacecraft will travel atop the rocket that will feature an upgraded RD-191 engine, an improved control system and its light-weight design, Rogozin said.

The cost price of Angara rockets will be cut through their serial production, which will be organized in Omsk from 2023. The Polyot Production Association plans to manufacture no less than eight heavy and two light Angara launch vehicles annually, Rogozin said.

A source in the domestic space industry earlier told TASS that the process of designing the Angara-A5P carrier rocket intended to orbit crewed Oryol spaceships would be completed by the end of 2019. The work on creating the launch vehicle is at its initial stage. The Angara-A5P differs from the standard Angara-A5 version by its greater redundancy potential, reliability and safety, the source specified.

Another source told TASS that the crewed Angara would differ from the standard rocket by lesser overloads upon its liftoff from the launch pad and upon the separation of the third stage and the manned Oryol spaceship.

The Angara is a family of Russian carrier rockets, from their light to their heavy versions. The new family uses environmentally friendly fuel 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.