MOSCOW, April 24 (AVN) - The Russian military transport aviation will commission four new AN-124-100 Condor planes as soon as they are repaired by the Aviastar aircraft plant, located in central European Russia's Ulyanovsk, military transport aviation commander Lieutenant General Viktor Denisov said on Tuesday.
The military transport aviation currently has 11 serviceable AN-124 planes, Denisov told the Military News Agency. Aviastar is repairing another four non-commissioned Condors in accordance with an agreement on the planes' leasing signed by the Air Force command and the Polyot airlines, based in Voronezh.
The planes can be used in the interests of the Defence Ministry in a period of danger, but their main purpose is participation in the Air Launch international project, Denisov noted.
The Air Launch project aims to develop a space-purpose aviation and missile system on the basis of the AN-124-100 heavy plane. The system is to put satellites weighing up to 3.5t into low, medium and high elliptic orbits with a broad range of inclinations.
The project involves the Energia missile and space corporation, Myasishchev experimental machine-building plant, other enterprises of the Russian aerospace and aircraft industry, as well as Ukraine's Antonov aircraft research and technical corporation. The developers are planning to complete Air Launch's project documents, production, integration, ground and flight tests in 2003. The cost of the project is estimated at USD120m-130m.