Expansionary Institute

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

.c The Associated Press

 
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia plans to launch 29 civilian rockets into space in 2001, carrying both manned space ships and satellites, a Russian space official said Thursday.

Twenty-two rockets will be launched from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan, said Sergei Dervyashkin, spokesman for Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, a branch of the military which also controls civilian space launches.

The Baikonur schedule includes a trial launch of a new modification for the Proton heavy-lift booster, the largest rocket currently in use in the world. Two manned Soyuz space capsules will be launched from Baikonur for the international space station in 2001, he said.

Baikonur was the main launch facility of the former Soviet Union and now leased by Russia from its southern neighbor. The remaining seven launches will be carried out from facilities in Russia's Arctic and Far East, Dervyashkin said.

AP-NY-01-04-01 1838EST

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.