Four Years to Angara: Vostochny Spaceport is Building Infrastructure
The first launches of super-heavy rockets from the Vostochny spaceport will take place in 2021. Roscosmos also counts on the facility's commercial success. Artem Potyomin will tell us more. The launch pad designed for Soyuz-2 rocket carriers, is the only one at the Vostochny spaceport.
It was from here in 2016 that the first launch was made. From here all the following ones are planned, also, up to 2021, as expected, or until new launch sites are built at Vostochny. Within 4 years, the first Angara should take off from the spaceport. In the long term, there will be a launch pad for super-heavy rockets, which will allow manned spacecraft to be sent into orbit.
And the Soyuz pad, which has been recently fully serviced, will not stand unused. We will have two Kanopus and Meteor as the main load, and about 9 apparatus, smaller apparatus that is, to fill the load, from other countries, and student, scientific organizations will participate in this.
The head of Roscosmos is at the Vostochny spaceport almost every month. The spaceport is, without exaggeration, the construction site of the century. Funds allocated for it are considerable, but this is just that case when every ruble is important and should be spent well. Our main goal is to provide for the end of construction, to provide for launches, and here we see that the dynamics are good, and the launches will be funded, and the complete building readiness of the main objects, that is, we'll finish all the construction. On the launcher, on the technical complex, on the gates, on the safety system.
Until the end of the year, at the beginning... by February 2018 I'm confident that we'll do it. Specialists come from all over the country to Vostochny: young people and employees with many years of experience. For example, those who for many years provided launches from Baikonur. At the refueling-neutralization station, almost all types of space vehicles are ready to be admitted, both existing and future ones.
In early September, for example, here they will begin work with the Fregat upper stage. Products are refueled with fuel and oxidizer, so special attention is paid to safety. We have a multi-level safety system, a dual-control gas monitoring system, a dual fire-extinguishing system, so, pressure and exhaust ventilation, we have everything is in order, accident ventilation. We are prepared for work at the highest level. So, if something happens the building will extinguish itself? Exactly. The science city, Tsiolkovsky, is also developing.
Six houses were built, in four of them on the street, named after the first space explorer, Yury Gagarin, already lives Vostochny staff. 14 high-rise buildings are currently also being built, for almost 1,300 apartments in total. In the fall the new kindergarten will welcome the first pupils. Playgrounds, training classes, a swimming pool. Not only the residents of the micro-district "Star City" will want to have their children go there, but also of the neighboring settlements. But there should be enough space for everyone: the kindergarten will be able to serve 230 kids.