BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan. Sept 29 (Interfax-AVN) - The construction of a launch pad for Angara carrier rockets at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur region is expected to begin before the end of 2014, Oleg Ostapenko, chief of the federal space agency Roscosmos, told reporters.
"I will travel to the cosmodrome in early October to decide how this work will be organized," he said.
Asked by Interfax-AVN whether Angara will be used in the first human flights from Vostochny, he said, "We are working, guided by this arrangement."
Concerning the first manned flight from Vostochny, set for 2018, Ostapenko said that, "all parameters regarding this cosmodrome are defined in the corresponding regulatory documents."
"We did not change anything in them, whether on the first launch, or subsequent work. The only thing we have done to guarantee further work is dovetailing our steps with the schedule we have. We have shifted the entire workload leftwards," he said.
"I think the first steps to build the Angara launch pad at Vostochny will be taken this year," he said.
Ostapenko confirmed that the initially planned launches from Vostochny will be carried out with the use of Angara rockets. "Our documents have everything described. We are working, guided by this," he said.
"But we do not rule out that further work will proceed with the next, more powerful carriers. We will outline broader capabilities in the documents," he said.
A launch pad for the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket is already under construction at Vostochny. The first unmanned launch has been set for 2015.