Russia's New Vostochny Launch Site Ready for Action

Russia plans its first launch from the new Vostochny (Eastern) launch site on Tuesday evening Eastern Daylight Time (Wednesday morning, Moscow Time) according to Russia’s Tass news agency.  A Soyuz 2.1a rocket will place three small satellites into orbit if all goes according to plan.

Russia’s interest in building a new launch site in Siberia to replace or at least reduce its use of the Baikonur Cosmodrome dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union when Kazakhstan gained its independence.  Russia now leases Baikonur from the Kazakh government for $115 million per year with resulting financial and national security ramifications.  Russia has another launch site, Plesetsk, near the Arctic Circle, for launches to high inclination orbits, but Baikonur is used for everything else, including the human spaceflight program.  In terms of utilization, Plesetsk is comparable to Vandenberg Air Force Base and Baikonur to Cape Canaveral and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Initially, Russia planned to build a new launch site at Svobodny (51.4°N, 128.1°E), a former intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) base.  A few space launches did take place from there between 1997 and 2006 using Start-1 rockets (converted SS-25 mobile missiles), but it was closed in early 2007.  Instead, a decision was made later that year to build a new state-of-the-art launch site at Vostochny (51.8°N, 128.3°E), not far away, that would accommodate launches of Russia’s new Angara launch vehicles in addition to existing rockets like Soyuz.  Construction started four years later, but was plagued with delays and charges of corruption.   The two