First Fully Commercial Launch From Vostochny to Take Place in April 2020 - Source

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) The first fully commercial launch from the Vostochny space center in Russia's Far East will take place in April 2020, a Russian space industry source told Sputnik.

"The first launch of satellites on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket from the Vostochny cosmodrome under a contract with OneWeb has been scheduled for April 18. It will be followed by launches in May, June and July," the source said.

According to the source, the fifth launch is possible from Vostochny in December to orbit the Meteor-M number 2-3 meteorological satellite.

The first launch of commercial satellites from Vostochny was carried out in 2017, but it involved microsatellites, which were orbited as an addition to the Meteor-M number 2-1 satellite. A Soyuz rocket for that launch was made at the expense of the Federal budget and the launch services were provided as part of the federal program.