Russia relocating cosmodrome

Russia has a long history of manned space flight and continues to operate one of the most advanced spaceports in the world. Our Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan remains the largest operational space launch facility in the world and was also the first in the world to be constructed and made operational.

Russia was the first country to launch a ballistic missiles, to put an animal in space, to launch a successful manned orbit of the earth and send a probe to the moon.

The Soviet Space Program was one that pioneered these accomplishments, though it failed many times as well.

The Soviet Space Program never successfully sent a man to the moon and many of the agencies failures were kept quiet, while successes were promoted for their propaganda value. This is part of Russia’s complex history and with the groundbreaking ceremony of the new Vostochny site, a new chapter is opened as democratic Russia continues its space program.

Construction on the new site will begin in 2011, according to Russia news reports, with an eventual completion date slated for 2018. The project will be undertaken in the Russian Far East in the province of Amur Oblast and will be significantly smaller than the current spaceport, due to changing requirements and a decreased obsession with secrecy.

Measuring about 500 square kilometers, the new cosmodrome will be funded by the national government and is expected to amount to an expenditure of around 400 billion rubles (US$13 billion) and will employ up to 25,000 people.

For the province of Amur Oblast, this is an extremely positive development as the construction of the facility itself will see many thousands of jobs created in the construction industry while a significant portion of the local population will be employed to work on the site when it is completed, according to Russia news media.

In addition, the location of the new cosmodrome has been strategically selected as part of the government’s plans to bring high-tech industries from the west to east.

Russia’s development is extremely uneven between the western and eastern regions and it is hoped that by placing the new space launch facility so far east, Amur Oblast will become a high-tech hub from which greater development can spread outwards as many companies that rely on the Russian aerospace industry will need to relocate to be near the new facility.

The government of Russia has pointed out that these benefits to the local community, in addition to the economic and geopolitical benefit for the country, make the project economically and politically feasible.

Currently, Russia pays around $115 million per year to lease Baikonur Cosmodrome from Kazakhstan and it is the only facility the Russian Federal Space Agency has from which manned flights and satellites can be launched. The new development will make Russia’s space program entirely independent.

The government has told Russia news media that the new site will also lead to a more efficient space operation in the future. The current Vostochny Cosmodrome has 8 launch sites in operation, each of which supports various generations of Russian spacecraft, namely Soyuz, Proton, Tsyklon, Dnepr, Zenit and Buran.

A further 8 have been closed or destroyed. The new facility will have seven launch pads, making it less costly to operate. The current budget for the Russian Federal Space Agency is around 82 billion rubles (US$2.4 billion).

The Russian Federal Space Agency is the successor of the Soviet Space Program, which was officially shut down in 1992 and replaced with the new agency reflecting the values and objectives of democratic Russia.