ASTANA. Dec 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Kazakhstan insists that launches of rockets propelled by the toxic fuel heptyl be eventually reduced at Baikonur, said Talgat Musabayev, the head of the country's space agency Kazcosmos.
"An agreement with Russia, which we are going to ratify now, should have a provision on a step-by-step reduction in the number of rocket launches with the use of toxic fuel, including the launches of Proton and RS-20 rockets," Musabayev told the parliamentary committee for international affairs, defense and security on Tuesday.
Musabayev was talking about the bill on the ratification of the Kazakhstan-Russia agreement to broaden cooperation in the effective uses of the Baikonur launch complex.
"We have no right to halt Proton launches, but we must do all we can to have their number reduced," he said.
Earlier reports said, citing Kazcosmos, that the Russian space agency Roscosmos had promised to use diplomatic channels to provide Kazakhstan with proposals on the gradual reduction of the number of launches of all rockets using heptyl from Baikonur.
Russia has been renting Baikonur since 1994. Several Russian rockets, including those using the environmentally unfriendly heptyl, have been failures since then. Their wreckage fell on Kazakh territory.