Ukraine plans to build a sea launch complex, the head of the Taftai State Nuclear Power Plant said
The State Space Agency of Ukraine (SCAU) intends to build a floating spaceport as part of the space program until 2025. The cost of the project was estimated at $ 172 million, said the head of the SCAU Vladimir Taftai in an interview with the publication "Suspilne. Novini".
"There are preliminary estimates and developments in this direction, it is planned to implement this project within the framework of the space program. This means that within these five years, all this should be implemented in metal and will work as a complex," Taftai said, answering a question about work on the marine launch complex.
The head of the SCAU noted that the cost of the project is estimated at 4.8 billion hryvnia (about 172 million dollars). He stressed that the project may be of interest to foreign customers.
Taftai also noted that the concept of the promising project is similar to the floating spaceport "Sea Launch", but the new launch platform will use a different rocket. According to him, it will be nine times smaller than the Zenit-3SL launch vehicle, which was used in the Sea Launch project.
In January, a former freelance adviser to the head of the SCAU, Andrei Kolesnik, suggested that the Ukrainian satellite Sich-2-30 was lost. Later, the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau (KB) reported that the satellite was in touch, but the lack of energy leads to communication disruptions.
In October 2021, Taftai announced that Ukraine was planning to create a new launch vehicle for launching from a floating platform. He noted that the payload of the rocket will be about 700 kilograms.
