MOSCOW, June 30th. / TASS /. The price of Russia’s newest Angara space rocket will be reduced when the rocket enters serial production, Khrunichev Space Center Deputy Director General Sergei Chulkov has told TASS.
He said that while the rocket is still at the research and development stage, “its main cost shows a greater loss compared to serial production, due to the need to carry out final development work and change the production technology. “
In addition, the cost of the rocket has been increased by the major equipment refurbishment and refurbishment at the Polyot plant based in Omsk, the official added.
“As soon as the serial production of the Angara rocket family is launched at the Polyot plant, their price will be comparable to the price of Proton launch vehicles, with a similar production process,” Chulkov said.
Reducing costs
The high cost price of the latest Angara carrier rocket ahead of its serial production is due to the need for the Khrunichev Space Center to operate at two sites, the news office of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation told TASS on Monday.
The Khrunichev Space Center said earlier in notes to its 2019 financial statements that the cost price of the Angara rocket would be reduced from 7 billion rubles ($ 100 million) to 4 billion rubles ($ 57 million) by 2024.
Roscosmos earlier said the Khrunichev Space Center would launch several Angara carrier rockets at a price of less than 5 billion rubles ($ 71 million) as part of the experimental design work.
Roscosmos Chief Executive Dmitry Rogozin said in January 2019 that the space agency had adopted an action plan to build the competitive edge of Russian launch vehicles, with particular emphasis on Angara and Soyuz-5 rockets.
The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It includes light, medium and heavy carrying rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tons. The new family of rockets uses environmentally friendly mobile components. To date, Russia has made only two Angara releases, both from the Plesetsk spaceport: a lightweight Angara-1.2PP was detonated in July 2014 and its heavyweight version derailed in December 2014.