Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos intends to carry out launches of Soyuz carrier rockets from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East in May-July this year, Roscosmos Head Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Monday.
“We hope to carry out launches in May, June and July from the Vostochny spaceport,” Rogozin said, TASS reported.
All the 36 British OneWeb satellites launched atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome overnight to April 26 were successfully put into the designated orbits, the Roscosmos chief said.
“This is a very reliable although complex vehicle and it is very competitive. And we see that the customer is content with the entire launch system,” Rogozin said.
OneWeb’s renewed agreement with the French Arianespace that acts as the launch operator stipulates the lift-off of 16 Russian Soyuz carrier rockets from the Kourou, Vostochny and Baikonur spaceports in 2020-2022. Each launch allows orbiting 34-36 OneWeb satellites. The Roscosmos chief announced on April 9 that the first-generation OneWeb cluster would be set up in late 2022 – early 2023.
