KOROLYOV (Moscow Region), April 13 (RIA Novosti) -
Flight tests of Russia's new cargo spacecraft will start in
2016-17, the general designer of the RSC Energia rocket
manufacturer said on Monday.
"We will make the new cargo ship more economical, less
expensive than those used today," Vitaly Lopota said.
He said the cargo spacecraft would be part of a new
transport system also including a new manned spaceship and a
new launch vehicle.
RSC Energia won a tender for a conceptual design of a new
manned spacecraft, worth 800 million rubles (about $25
million).
Lopota said the new system is planned to be launched from
at a new space center, Vostochny, in Russia's Far East, which
is expected to take five years to build and enter service in
2015.
Russia currently uses two launch sites for carrier rockets
- the Baikonur space center in the Central Asian Republic of
Kazakhstan, which it has leased since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, and the Plesetsk space center in northwest Russia.
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