MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Specialists of the Ground Space Infrastructure Facilities Operation Center (TsENKI, part of Roscosmos) are planning to place the entire launch infrastructure for a future reusable methane-powered rocket Amur-LNG within a one-piece launch platform, thus building up from the experience of the floating Sea Launch cosmodrome, Nikolay Nestechuk, TsENKI CEO, has told TASS in an interview.

"As far as the launch complex is concerned, we have adopted the concept of using the so-called launch platform, borrowing the experience of the well-known Sea Launch, where all the technological equipment and in fact the entire launch complex constituted a single structure," Nestechuk said.

He noted that such a solution would reduce the time and cost of work, as well as ensure the safety and reliability of the launch infrastructure.

Roscosmos and RSC Progress signed a contract in October 2020 to develop a preliminary design of a space rocket complex for Russia’s first reusable methane-powered rocket Amur. The rocket having a reusable first stage will be launched from the Vostochny spaceport in the Amur Region. On March 10, 2023, Roscosmos announced that it would keep working on the reusable methane-powered Amur-LNG launch vehicle. It hopes to be through with finalizing the technical design by the end of this year.

About Sea Launch

The Sea Launch spaceport consists of the Odyssey launch floating platform and a command ship. The program operated until 2014, with 32 Zenit rocket launches performed from the platform based off the US coast. In 2014, Sea Launch activities were suspended, and in September 2016, the S7 group of companies became the owner of the rocket and space complex.

In the spring of 2020, the command ship and platform crossed the Pacific to be moored at the Slavyansk Ship Repair Plant dock in Russia’s Primorye Region. In late September 2021, Dmitry Rogozin, the then head of Roscosmos, said that the future of the Sea Launch floating cosmodrome should be determined soon.