According to the head of Roscosmos, retrofitting the launch will give European astronauts the opportunity to get to the ISS on their own
MOSCOW, February 17. /tass/. Retrofitting the Soyuz launch complex at the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana for manned launches will help European taxpayers save billions of euros. This opinion was expressed by the Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.
"It is important for Russia and Europe to find new areas and directions for cooperation. One of such projects could be the retrofitting of the Soyuz launch complex in French Guiana to a manned level. <...> This will save European taxpayers billions of euros and give European cosmonautics the opportunity to quickly enter the club of space powers with all competencies in manned flights," Rogozin wrote in his Telegram channel.
According to the head of Roscosmos, retrofitting the launch will give European astronauts the opportunity to get to the ISS on their own. "Using the proven, most reliable manned Soyuz MS spacecraft with an equally reliable Soyuz-2 rocket from the French cosmodrome in Kourou with a European launch crew trained by our specialists is, in my opinion, a great idea," he said.
In June, Rogozin told reporters during a press conference that the possibility of transforming the Soyuz-2 launch complex, which is located at the Guiana Space Center, under manned programs, including for launching ships in the direction of the Chinese station, is being discussed with French colleagues as part of a large lunar project.
Earlier, Ruslan Mukhamedzhanov, general director of the Center for the Operation of Ground-based Space Infrastructure Facilities (CENKI, part of Roscosmos), said in an interview with TASS that the launch complex, in the case of manned launches, would need to finalize the mobile service tower, create infrastructure for the placement and pre-flight training of astronauts.
In turn, the general director of the Progress Rocket and Space Center Dmitry Baranov told TASS that the completion of the Soyuz-ST for manned launches, if the Russian Federation and France agree on the use of the Soyuz launch complex at the Guiana Space Center (Kourou Cosmodrome) for these purposes, will not be required.
