E
extropiandreams
Guest
Russian defence minister Ivanov said last month that all military and dual-purpose launches would be moved to domestic soil - to plesetzk. <br /><br />The new Angara rocket(first launch still planed for 2010) would allow to reach GEO with some interesting orbital maneuvers. So when all military and government launches go to plesetzk, it's easy to guess they will also move domestic russian com sats(like express or yamal) to plesetzk.<br /><br />All commercial soyuz launches will move to korou, starting in 2008. Dnepr can now also be launched from Dombarovsky. Rockot already launches from plesetzk, there are only a couple of tsyklones left - that leaves ISS soyuz launches, the proton and a planned angara joint venture in baikonour.<br /><br /> ESA is asking for manned launch capability in korou, so it could well be that there will be an alternative for iss launches. The Proton will be replaced by the angara launcher. A new russian space station would use a higher inclination(planned for mir-2) so all launches for it could take place from plesetzk. So in the long term all that could be left for baikonur are commercial angara and landlaunch(zenit-2) launches. <br /><br />I doubt the russians would continue to pay 500 millions $/year when they don't need baikonur for their state programs. So are we seeing the end of baikonur in the mid to long term ?