BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan. Dec 28 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - Between 20 and 23 space rockets are to be launched from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in 2005, the Baikonur Federal Space Center said on Monday.
Six Soyuz carrier rockets will lift off from Baikonur, which is situated in Kazakhstan, with piloted spaceships aboard, the center told Interfax.
One Soyuz will put the Russian research satellite Foton into orbit in the middle of the year.
Another four Soyuz rockets will be launched in the fall and winter of 2005 under contracts with the StarSem company, taking into space the Venera Express vehicle, two Galileo navigation satellites and a Metop satellite.
In addition, seven to 10 Proton carrier rockets will be launched from Baikonur. Two of them will put Russian telecommunications satellites of the Express class into orbit, one will put three GLONASS satellites into orbit, and four to seven will carry foreign telecommunications satellites into space.
Two rockets of the Dnepr series, converted from a missile, will launch foreign satellites for the Kosmotras International Space Company.
The 2004 program at Baikonur closed on December 26 with the launching of a Proton-K rocket with two GLONASS satellites and one GLONASS-M satellite aboard. It was the 17th space rocket to fly from the cosmodrome this year.