Russia is creating its new Soyuz-5 carrier rocket to capture the market of commercial launches, and the new rocket’s price will be competitive with those of its U.S. rivals, the head of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“We have some reserve potential as well and we are ready to compete with them. The Soyuz-5 rocket is aimed at capturing the commercial market, and not only for solving state objectives. It should be competitive price-wise so that even with all our rivals’ economic policy tricks, they won’t be able to cut it to a level that could pose a challenge to us,” Rogozin said.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense included Russia in the list of countries whose services cannot be used after December 31, 2022 in carrying out space launches. A notification to this effect was uploaded by the Pentagon’s Federal Acquisition Regulation System to the website of the Federal Register – the daily journal of the U.S. Government.
The Soyuz-5 (Irtysh) medium-class carrier rocket is being developed by Energia Space Rocket Corporation. The rocket is designed for launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome as part of the Baiterek joint project with Kazakhstan. The Soyuz-5 will be able to deliver the promising manned Federatsiya spacecraft into a low near-Earth orbit.
The Soyuz-5 is set to be developed by 2021. During the new rocket’s flight tests, its four launches are planned to be carried out in 2022-2025.
