Among other things, Russia will be required to increase the launches of both manned Soyuz spacecraft and Fergus spacecraft to the space station due to the increase of the crew to 6
No less than 39 launches are expected from Russia's two space centers - Baikonur in Kazakhstan and Plesak in Siberia.
Russian space agency, Roscosmos She said Because, among other things, launches of international partners, and several launches of commercial projects will be carried out as part of Russia's federal space program (Glonass program).
Starting next year, the crew of the International Space Station will increase from three people to six. As part of the partnership in the project, Russia will launch during 2009 four manned Soyuz spacecraft and five cargo spacecraft of Progress to the International Space Station. As part of the Russians' launch policy, these launches will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, since the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is not used for manned launches.
The Proton rocket will launch into orbit two Express communication satellites, two navigation satellites Glonass, seventeen communication satellites, two ocean and weather monitoring satellites, one emergency situations monitoring satellite and six astrophysical satellites for studying the planets in the solar system.
The heads of the Russian space program previously announced that the number of Russian navigation satellites launched as part of the Glonass program will reach 30 satellites by 2011. As part of the program were launched Last Thursday (December 25) three Glonass satellites on a Proton-M rocket, this launch joins a successful launch previous which was launched in September this year. The Russians intend to create an independent navigation system from the American GPS system and the European Galileo system.
In 2008, Russia carried out 27 launches into space, thereby surpassing the number of launches from 2007, which stood at 26. As mentioned, in 2009 a record number of 39 launches is planned.
