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Price of Angara rocket to decline in future — designers

Once the serial production of the Angara family of rocket is launched at the Polyot plant, their price will be comparable to the price of serial Proton launch vehicles

MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/. The price of Russia’s newest Angara space rocket will be reduced when the rocket enters serial production, Deputy Director General of the Khrunichev Space Center Sergei Chulkov has told TASS.

He said that as long as the rocket remains in the research and development stage, "its prime cost reflects greater losses as compared to serial production, due to the need to carry out final development work and adjust the production technology."

Moreover, the rocket’s cost is increased by the major equipment overhaul and upgrade at the Omsk-based Polyot plant, the official added.

"Once the serial production of the Angara family of rocket is launched at the Polyot plant, their price will be comparable to the price of serial Proton launch vehicles, given the similar production process," Chulkov said.

Reducing costs

The high cost price of the latest Angara carrier rocket before the start of its serial production is due to the need for the Khrunichev Space Center to work at two sites, the press office of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Monday.

The Khrunichev Space Center earlier said in notes to its 2019 financial statements that the Angara rocket’s cost price would be lowered from 7 billion rubles ($100 million) to 4 billion rubles ($57 million) by 2024.

Roscosmos earlier said that the Khrunichev Space Center would produce several Angara carrier rockets at a price of less than 5 billion rubles ($71 million) as part of the experimental design work.

Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said in January 2019 that the space corporation had adopted an action plan to raise the Russian launch vehicles’ competitive edge, with a special emphasis made on Angara and Soyuz-5 rockets.

The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It consists of light, medium and heavy carrier rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tonnes. The new family of rockets uses environmentally-friendly propellant 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.