MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. The Khrunichev Center (part of Roscosmos) has not received any notifications about the rumored termination of the contract for the launch of the South Korean satellite Kompsat-6 (Arirang-6) with the Angara-1.2 launch vehicle.

"We have not received any notifications from the customer the launch contract is terminated," the Khrunichev Center’s CEO Alexey Varochko said.

He explained that the Republic of Korea had no direct agreements with Russia regarding the satellite’s launch. The customer is the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, which in 2016 signed a contract on acquiring launch services with a subsidiary of the Khrunichev Center in the US, the ILS company. The Khrunichev Center itself participates in the project in the capacity of a subcontractor.

"All of South Korea’s requirements under the contract for the launch of the Kompsat-6 satellite with the Angara-1.2 launch vehicle have been fulfilled by the Khrunichev Center. The contract and subcontract for launch services to put Kompsat-6 in space spacecraft are valid," Varochko said.

However, the US Department of Commerce's license to export Kompsat-6 to Russia was suspended.

"The satellite cannot be imported to make preparations for and carry out the launch. The duration of the license’s suspension is not defined. This fact once again confirms the impact of sanctions on the economies of those countries that have joined them, and on international cooperation in space in general," Varochko said, emphasizing that the Khrunichev Center continued to explore possible ways of continuing cooperation, taking into account "the realities and characteristics of the modern world."

Earlier, the Yonhap agency, citing South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technologies, reported that the Republic of Korea had terminated the agreement with Russia on the launch of the Kompsat-6 satellite with the Angara-1.2 rocket in January. Instead of the Russian rocket, it is planned to use the European carrier Vega-C.