In particular, the parties will discuss agreements on the implementation of the Baiterek project
NUR-SULTAN, December 10. /tass/. The next meeting of the Kazakh-Russian intergovernmental commission on the Baikonur complex will be held in Nur-Sultan on December 13, where agreements on the creation of the Baiterek space rocket complex will be discussed. This was stated by the Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Alexey Borodavkin.
"On December 13, Nur-Sultan will host the seventh meeting of the bilateral intergovernmental commission on the Baikonur complex. As I understand it, agreements on the implementation of the Baiterek project will be finalized there. We are talking about modernizing the ground infrastructure in order to launch the new Russian Soyuz-5 launch vehicle. It is planned that the first launch of this rocket will take place before the end of 2023," the ambassador said in an interview with the Khabar-24 TV channel.
According to him, Russia is also paying serious attention to the project to modernize the Gagarin Launch at the Baikonur cosmodrome. "We attach great importance to the modernization of this start, which has been working for many decades. Now we are involving our partners from the United Arab Emirates in this, who are ready, as it seems, to invest certain funds in modernization, and we will do this project on a trilateral basis," the ambassador explained.
Site No. 1 (Gagarin Launch) is the oldest launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from which the Vostok spacecraft with the world's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board set off on April 12, 1961. The project involves the creation of a trilateral joint venture (Kazakhstan, Russia and the UAE) to modernize the launch pad and service launches of Soyuz-2 launch vehicles.
In 2018, a protocol was signed on amendments to the agreement of the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia on the creation of the Baiterek complex on Baikonur dated December 22, 2004. It defines the obligations of the parties under the project, the withdrawal from lease and the transfer to the Kazakh side of the objects of the ground-based space infrastructure of the Zenit-M complex for modernization. Kazakhstan is responsible for the creation of ground infrastructure through the modernization of the Zenit-M KRK. Russia is developing Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6 launch vehicles, which it plans to launch from there. The first launch is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023. The launch complex will be named "Nazarbayev Start".
