Roscosmos signs 10-bln-ruble contract to buy 8 rockets for ISS missions
MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax) - Roscosmos has signed a contract for buying eight Soyuz-2-1a rockets, which will transport Progress MS resupply ships and Soyuz MS manned spaceships to the International Space Station (ISS), according to data from SPARK Marketing.
The contract was concluded with the only supplier of such rockets, the Progress Rocket Space Center based in Samara.
According to the technical assignment, three rockets must be ready by November 25, 2020, and the other five by November 25, 2021.
Roscosmos will pay 10.447 billion rubles for the rockets, or 1.3 billion rubles per rocket.
It was reported in mid-May that Roscosmos would procure an Angara-1.2 rocket for about 2 billion rubles for launching three Gonets satellites in 2021.
According to SPARK Marketing, the state corporation will invest 2,027,800,000 rubles in the new rocket, which will put Gonets-M satellites No. 33, 34, and 35 into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in 2021.
Preceding this, two Gonets trios will be launched with Soyuz-2.1b rockets, each of which costs about 1.345 billion rubles. The Angara's price is almost 700 million rubles higher.
The eco-friendly Angara family comprises Angara-1.2 light vehicles, Angara-A3 medium vehicles, Angara-A5 heavy vehicles (in the modernized configuration A5M), and Angara-A5V super-heavy vehicles with an oxygen-hydrogen booster unit.