The Sea Launch floating spaceport can't compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX. This is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the General Director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.
Speaking during parliamentary hearings in the State Duma, Rogozin spoke about the conditions for the transfer of the Sea Launch to the Russian company S7. According to the head of the state corporation, the cosmodrome was sold on the condition that it "cannot be used in competition with Elon Musk."
"All right? That is, the US government, government lawyers act as a client, in fact, a private company. Or maybe it is not a private company in this case, if with the help of state sanctions, we are restricted from competing with SpaceX? " - Rogozin was surprised.
Summing up the conversation, the head of Roscosmos noted that before the sale of the Sea Launch ,the American side " pulled out and cut out all the equipment on these ships." Rogozin noted that the restoration of the cosmodrome will require tens of billions of rubles.
Work on the creation of a floating spaceport, which at that time was an international project, began in 1995. In 2009, Sea Launch declared bankruptcy. Since 2018, the launch pad has been taken over by S7.
In October , it became known that 28 billion rubles are needed to restore the "Sea Launch". In the summer of 2020, journalists reported with reference to Rosatom that the cost of the floating cosmodrome is 11 billion rubles.
Andrey Stavitsky