Article Posted on : - Jul 16, 2010

Russia's Angara rocket. Photo: Khrunichev Space Center.

MOSCOW (BNS): Russia plans to start the testing of the new booster rocket, the Angara in 2013.

According to a news report by RIA Novosti, the Angara rocket assembly would be completed in the first quarter of 2011.

"The first-stage engine was 99% ready and the second-stage engine had already been tested three times," Vladimir Nesterov, head of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, was quoted as saying in the report.

Delay in purchase of ground-based equipment, due to funding problem, could affect the schedule of the tests, the report added.

The Angara rocket family is a family of space-launch vehicles currently under development by the Moscow-based Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.

The rockets, which are to provide lifting capabilities between 2,000 and 40,500 kg into low earth orbit, are intended to become the mainstay of the Russian unmanned launcher fleet in the future and replace several existing systems.

The rocket will reduce Russia's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in the independent republic of Kazakhstan.

Khrunichev has also been developing a super-heavy-lift version (Angara 7), which is capable of orbiting payload of between 45 and 75 tons, and for which there is no equivalent in Russia's current rocket fleet.