ARKHANGELSK. Nov 16 (Interfax) - One of the last three Rokot launch vehicles (LVs) will lift off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the next two weeks, a source at the cosmodrome told Interfax on Friday.
"The next launch of the Rokot LV, which is the first of the last three LVs [planned to be launched], is scheduled to be performed before late November," the interlocutor of the news agency said.
As previously reported, the Rokot LV has placed a commercial satellite on orbit last time in late April.
Another three launches of Rokot LVs with military and scientific-research payload are planned to be launched by the yearend, their use will be ceased after that, according to an Interfax source with the aerospace industry.
"The resource of this type of LVs is planned to be eventually used by the yearend. The Rokot LVs will deliver to orbit three satellites in the interests of the Defense Ministry, three Gonets-M telecom satellites, and the Geo-IK-2 geodesic satellite during their last three liftoffs. The manufacturing and launches of these rockets will be terminated after that," he said.
Rokot LVs, derived from an intercontinental ballistic missile, are launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region by crews of the Space Forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Rokot is a light liquid-fuel three-stage rocket designed by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center on the basis of the UR-100N UTTKh (RS-18B) intercontinental ballistic missile with the use of a Briz-KM upper stage. The first rocket was launched with a suborbital trajectory on November 20, 1990.
The Ukrainian government banned the delivery of Rokot component parts to Russia in February 2015. Also, the service life of RS-18B missiles built before 1985 (35 years) will expire in 2020. Therefore, the Russian Defense Ministry has decided to stop using Rokot LVs and replace them with the domestic Angara.
The Khrunichev space center said in March that "engineering documentation is being prepared to give Rokot 2 a second chance in the context of import substitution and 100% Russian ownership of the production cycle."