MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/: The Khrunichev Space Center will produce several Angara carrier rockets at a price of less than 5 billion rubles ($71 million), the press office of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Monday.
"The contract for several rockets of this type as part of the experimental design work has been signed at the price of less than 5 billion rubles per rocket, which is considerably lower than the initial price," Roscosmos said.
The Khrunichev Space Center earlier said in notes to its 2019 financial statements that the Angara rocket’s cost price would be lowered from 7 billion rubles ($100 million) to 4 billion rubles ($57 million) by 2024.
Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said in January 2019 that the space corporation had adopted an action plan to raise the Russian launch vehicles’ competitive edge, with a special emphasis made on Angara and Soyuz-5 rockets.
The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It consists of light, medium and heavy carrier rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tonnes. The new family of rockets uses environmentally-friendly propellant components. So far, Russia has carried out only two Angara launches, both of them from the Plesetsk spaceport: a light Angara-1.2PP blasted off in July 2014 and its heavy version lifted off in December 2014.
