MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The Khrunichev Space Center has been able to significantly reduce the cost of satellite launches atop its Proton-M rockets thanks to optimization of the production process, Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) chief Igor Komarov said.
"The [space launch] market has seriously changed. This forced us to rectify our efforts. Whereas a year ago the price of delivery by a Proton-M was $95 million on average, now, not least thanks to its reform measures, the Khrunichev Center was able to bring the price down to $69-70 million. And the project remains profitable," Komarov said.
"I would like to support my colleagues who boldly agree to reduce the cost price and reform the production process. Because I hope this will be a very good example of efficient program implementation while keeping the competitiveness of the delivery vehicles even under the difficult conditions such as sanctions and aggressive price offers for space deliveries on the part of our U.S. partners," Komarov said.
The declared price parameters of the new U.S. delivery vehicles have yet to be proved by real launches, he said.