Roscosmos in talks with S7 over Sea Launch handover - Rogozin

MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax) - Roscosmos is in talks with S7 over the potential handover of the Sea Launch cosmodrome to the state corporation, its chief Dmitry Rogozin said.

"Sea Launch is still in S7's private hands. We are ready to put it into the State's coffers with its handover to Roscosmos. We are holding relevant talks," Rogozin said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

"Of course, given the sanctions, the facility can no longer be used for commercial launches for understandable reasons," he said.

In an interview with Interfax last December Rogozin said that Roscosmos, S7 and Rosatom were working out the optimal way to implement the Sea Launch operation project.

On November 18, 2021 Roscosmos said its technical specialists had examined the cosmodrome and rated its condition as good.

On December 9, 2021, Andrei Yelchaninov, first deputy chairman of the collegium of the Military-Industrial Commission, told Interfax that upgrading Sea Launch and building its coastal infrastructure would cost 37-47 billion rubles.

S7 Group purchased the Sea Launch mobile platform in 2018. The group became the owner of the Sea Launch Commander ship, the Odyssey mobile platform with the relevant rocket launch infrastructure, and ground-based equipment in the project's home port of Long Beach, California, in the U.S., and the Sea Launch copyright, including the trademark, as well.

Sea Launch was successfully transferred from the U.S. to a permanent base port in the Far East in spring 2020.

Rogozin said in July 2020 that Roscosmos would develop a launch vehicle for Sea Launch missions on the basis of the Soyuz-5 rocket by 2023. He also said that corporation specialists had examined the Sea Launch infrastructure, had visited the commander ship and the Odyssey mobile platform, and had made sure of their satisfactory condition.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said on August 25, 2020 that the Sea Launch mobile platform might be completely restored sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.