Moscow: Russia will use the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan until 2050, the head of the Russian space agency said.

"The Russian president has set the task to use the Baikonur space centre in full until 2050. We have approved the proposal," Anatoly Perminov, head of the federal space agency Roscosmos told journalists on Cosmonautics Day Saturday.

Baikonur, built in Kazakhstan in the 1950s, was first leased by Russia from Kazakhstan under an agreement signed in 1994 after the break up of the Soviet Union.

Baikonur mayor Alexander Mezentsev said earlier that the number of spacecraft to be launched from the space centre would increase 33 percent, year-on-year, in 2008 to a total of 28. He said Russia launched a total of 21 carrier rockets from the site in 2007.

At present, Russia and Kazakhstan are working to build a space complex at Baikonur, Baiterek, to launch Angara carrier rockets capable of delivering 26 metric tonnes of payload into low-Earth orbits.

Kazakhstan and Russia have each reportedly allocated $223 million for the construction of the Baiterek launch site under a 2004 agreement. Russia celebrated Cosmonautics Day April 12 in honour of the historic first manned space flight made by Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin in 1961.

 

Source : IANS