MOSCOW. Sept 7 (Interfax) - The head of Roscosmos has visited the construction site for the second launch pad at Vostochny cosmodrome.
"We are beginning the construction of the second launch pad, for the heavy-class [carrier rocket] Angara at Vostochny," Rogozin tweeted during the visit.
The construction is due to be completed by 2023.
It emerged in late August that the construction would cost just under 39 billion rubles.
On August 28, the cosmodrome's directorate announced on the procurement website that it had contracted a sole supplier to build the launch pad at Site 1A. The maximum sum the federal government is prepared to allocate is nearly 38,750,000,000 rubles.
The funding is expected is to be transferred in two installments: 6.4 billion rubles in 2019 and 32.3 billion rubles in 2021.
The construction deadline is December 31, 2022.
Angara is a family of module-type launch vehicles using kerosene-oxygen engines. The family comprises rockets of four classes ranging from light to heavy with cargo-carrying capacity ranging from 1.5 tonnes (Angara 1.1) to 35 tonnes (Angara-A7) if put into low-earth orbit after being launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Angara rockets are developed and produced by Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Center.
The various versions of the Angara rocket have different numbers of URMs (URM-1 for the first stage and URM-2 for the second and the third). One such module is used for light-class rockets (Angara 1.1 and Angara 1.2), three for medium-class rockets (Angara-A3), and five for heavy ones (Angara-A5).