MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2021) The cost of maintenance of the Sea Launch spaceport in Russia's Primorye Territory stands at over $1 million per month, the general director of the S7 Space Transportation Systems (part of S7 Group holding company) that owns the complex, told Sputnik.
"We spend a lot of money [on Sea Launch] - more than a million Dollars a month. It [the floating spaceport] needs to be maintained, these are complex, dangerous objects. We support the teams, we pay for parking, we pay for engineering support. These are quite large costs," Evgeny Yelin said.
In 2016, multinational complex Sea Launch was acquired by Russia's S7 group of companies for $150 million. In 2020, the facility was relocated from the United States to the Russian Far Eastern port of Slavyanka.
The Sea Launch project was founded in 1995 by Russia, Norway, Ukraine and the US to organize equatorial rocket launches of the Ukrainian Zenit rockets. In 2014, after the start of the crisis in Ukraine, the operation of the facility was suspended due to Kiev's refusal to deliver Zenit rockets to the Russian side.
In August 2020, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said that Sea Launch might again become operation in 2023 or 2024, after all repair work is completed.
