MOSCOW. July 7 (Interfax-AVN) - Using liquefied natural gas as fuel for the new rocket carrier Soyuz-5 will allow cutting launch cost by 50%, General Director of the Samara-based Progress Rocket and Space Center Alexander Kirilin told Interfax-AVN.
"Today Progress Rocket and Space Center is developing the concept design of the two-stage rocket carrier Soyuz-5 on its own initiative and it is planned to complete it this year. Today we are working on including this topic in the federal space program. According to the general schedule drafted in the framework of scientific and research work, the launch of the Soyuz-5 rocket carrier is planned for 2021," he said.
"According to the preliminary estimates, the launch of this carrier will be approximately 50% cheaper than the launch of the Soyuz-2 rocket carrier," Kirilin said.
Technical works are currently being held on using the existing infrastructure to base the new promising rocket carrier Soyuz-5 at the Vostochny and Plesetsk cosmodromes, he said.
The Soyuz-5 rocket carrier is being designed in the framework of the Magistral scientific and research work, Kirilin told Interfax-AVN in 2013. "This is a very interesting device working on liquefied natural gas components - 16-tonne device and 8-tonne one without side blocks," Kirilin said.
The Soyuz-5 rocket should substitute rockets built on the basis of the R-7 rocket. "It mounts the R-7 start and this is a very promising project," Kirilin said.