Seven Soyuz launches from Kourou spaceport planned in 2013-2014 - Dordain
LE BOURGET. June 20 (Interfax-AVN) - Seven Russian Soyuz-ST launch vehicles will be launched from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in 2013-2014, European Space Agency Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain told Interfax-AVN at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget on Thursday.
Four of these vehicles will be launched in 2013, Dordain said. The first of them will go into space on Monday, June 24, and the other three in September, October, and December, he said.
The other three Soyuz launches are planned in 2014, he said.
The Russian-European program Soyuz-Kourou is working well, he said.
The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos and the French company Arianespace signed an agreement on launching Soyuz launch vehicles from the Kourou space center in 2005. It is planned to launch at least 50 Soyuz-ST vehicles from Kourou in 15 years. No manned launches from the space center are planned within the next 15 years. The program's total cost is 344 million euro, and Russia accounts for 121 million euro in the overall volume of the work.
Four Soyuz-ST vehicles were launched from Kourou in 2011-2012.
The TsSKB-Progress design bureau reported that the Soyuz-ST-A version can place payloads weighing up to 2,760 kilos into a geo-transfer orbit, up to 1,190 kilos into a geostationary orbit, and up to 4,349 kilos into a sun-synchronous orbit, while the Soyuz-ST-B can place up to 3,150 kilos into a geo-transfer orbit, up to 1,480 kilos into a geostationary orbit, and up to 4,910 kilos into a sun-synchronous orbit.