Russia may end its lease on the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan, allowing a joint Russian-Kazakh administration to run the famous launch facility.
However, the Russians will not be abandoning the facility.
"I want to stress that there is no talk of Russia leaving Baikonur. New forms of cooperation are being worked upon," Roscosmos deputy head Sergei Savelyev told the Moscow-based Ivzestia newspaper on Thursday, Feb. 14, reports The Associated Press.
The Baikonur complex is the largest space launch facility in the world, housing 15 launch pads on the desert steppe of Kazakhstan. It currently serves as the launch facility for the Soyuz spacecraft, the only spacecraft that shuttles crew (including American astronauts) and equipment to and from the International Space Station, and has since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
Built in 1955 to test intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Baikonur Cosmodrome was the first space facility to launch manned rockets. The famed cosmodrome launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957, as well as Vostok 1 in 1961, which made Yuri Gagarin the first human to visit space.
Under the current deal with Kazakhstan, Russia pays the Central Asian nation $115 million annually for use of the Soviet-built complex, and pays $160 million annually on operating costs. Last year, Kazakhstan announced it would be limiting the number of launches of the Proton heavy-load vehicle to 12. Russia was hoping to launch 14 of the vehicles, and viewed the limit as obstructing its satellite-launching business.
With a new jointly run administration, Kazakhstan hopes to expand its own space agency. "By 2030, Kazakhstan should broaden its niche in the global space market and bring a number of ongoing projects to their logical conclusions," said Kazakhstan space agency chief Talgat Musabayev in a meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 13. A large part of this expansion involved building the new Bayterek launch pad at Baikonur, a project that has been delayed by increasing costs and slow progress. But Russia has indicated that the Angara rocket, originally slated to launch under the Bayterek program at Baikonur, could also be launched from its Vostochny complex in the Far Eastern District in Russia, in an attempt to lower dependence on Kazakhstan. The Vostochny complex is slated to be completed in 2018.
