MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin ordered his
government Friday to build a new space launchpad, develop a new booster rocket
and upgrade Russia's satellite fleet as part of an ambitious
program to revive the nation's space glory.
Russia has launched all its manned
missions — many involving U.S.
and other foreign crew members — from the Soviet-built Baikonur cosmodrome,
which it leases from neighboring Kazakhstan. While Russia plans to continue using Baikonur
for several decades to come, Putin's order indicates a desire to increase the
nation's self-reliance.
"We
must ensure Russia's guaranteed access to space, that
is a capability to make all kind of space launches — satellites, manned spacecraft
and interplanetary probes — from our own territory," Putin said
during a meeting of the presidential Security Council, which discussed the
nation's space strategy.
He pledged
to further increase allocations to the space program and urged officials to
speed up construction of the Far Eastern Vostochny launch facility to make it
capable of handling manned space launches.
Putin said
that design works on Vostochny, or Eastern, cosmodrome in the Amur region which
borders China, should start this year.
Moscow pays US$115 million (euro73
million) annually for the use of Baikonur under a deal effective through 2050.
Kazakh authorities have repeatedly complained about dangers and environmental
damage from failed launches.
Russia has the Plesetsk launchpad in the
north, but it's used mostly for putting military satellites in orbit and is
unfit for manned space launches.
The new Far
Eastern cosmodrome will be built near the Svobodny launch site, which was converted
from a former Soviet strategic missile base but closed last year.
Federal
Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov said after the meeting that the Vostochny launchpad
will be built by 2015 and begin handling all manned space launches in 2020. He
added that Russia will also continue using Baikonur.
Putin on
Friday also ordered space officials to speed up the development of the new heavylift
Angara booster rocket and modernize and
expand the nation's satellite fleet.
"We
need a clear plan of expansion of the number and capabilities of Russia's orbiting fleet," Putin said.
He stressed
the need to fully deploy the Global Navigation Satellite System, or GLONASS, Russia's equivalent to the U.S. Global
Positioning System.
The
government promised to make GLONASS fully operational at the year's start, but
it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems.
Russia's space industries fell on hard
times after the 1991 Soviet collapse when once-generous state funding dried up.
They have survived mostly thanks to launches of foreign commercial satellites
and revenue from so-called "space
tourists."
Since 2000,
five wealthy private citizens have bought trips to the International Space
Station, riding there and back on Russian spacecraft.
Russia's oil-driven economic boom has led
to increases in government spending on the nation's space program in recent
years, reducing the space agency's dependence on revenue generated by
commercial flights.
Perminov
said Friday that Russia may stop selling seats on its
spacecraft to "tourists" starting in 2010 because of the planned
expansion of the international space station's crew.
He said
that the station's permanent crew is expected to grow from the current three to six or even nine in 2010. That will
mean that Russia will have fewer extra seats
available for tourists on its Soyuz spacecraft, which are used to ferry crews
to the station and back to Earth.
"We
will continue flying tourists to the international space station in accordance
with the existing programs, but we may have problems with it starting from 2010
because of the planned increase of the ISS' crew to six-nine people," Perminov
said, according to Russian news reports.
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