NUR-SULTAN. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will invest a combined $84 million in reconstructing the Gagarin's Start launch pad at Baikonur, Kazakh Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Marat Nurguzhin said.
"We are talking about investments. Together with Kazakhstan's direct investment fund, we are contemplating about $84 million, with each side contributing about $28 million. This will be parity-based financing on par terms," Nurguzhin told journalists in Nur-Sultan on Wednesday.
"Under the project plan, the reconstruction is to take three years. Right up to 2023 inclusively," he said.
Earlier, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said that the launch pad's construction was to begin next year.
The three sides were expected to complete talks over a contract in the first half of November, he said.
Gagarin's Start has been closed since the last Soyuz-FG rocket launch on September 25.
In early June the Russian Direct investment Fund and UAE investors signed an agreement with Roscosmos on allocating $90 million to reconstruct the site of the world's first space launch, with Yury Gagarin aboard the Vostok, on April 12, 1961.