MOSCOW. Oct 4 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian budget for 2005 provides for 3,830 million rubles ($131 million) to be earmarked for space exploration, acquisition of specialized equipment, organization of launches and control of satellites in orbit, a source in the State Duma Defense Committee told Interfax-Military News Agency Monday.
"The money will go for maintenance of installations at the Baikonur launch site that are used for military, scientific, social and economic space programs," he said.
Also, the money will be spent for funding the Gagarin astronaut training center and a 1,100-men strong military detachment, including its 700 commissioned officers.
The same section of the budget provides for the maintenance of the Kosmonavt Georgy Dobrovolsky and Kosmonavt Viktor Patsayev research vehicles, as well as a number of other infrastructure pieces used for conducting space activity, and including command and measurement facilities, flight control centers and posts, data reception and processing posts, areas of split stages falling, experimental and tests grounds and so on.
Moreover, the Resurs-UPK versatile platform is in plans to support spacecraft utilized for Earth remote probing, hydro-meteorological surveillance, ecological monitoring and emergencies monitoring, the source said.
Also, there are plans to build more launch vehicles to carry new generation Express-AM satellites to orbit, as well as to ensure operation of assets used to receive, process and store space photographic data from Meteor-3M, Resurs-DK and Sich-1M.