MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2019) Russia put 112 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) in the construction of the Angara rocket system, including two carrier rockets for tests and a launch system at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Vladimir Nesterov, the former chief engineer of the Khrunichev Space Center, who headed the rocket tests from Plesetsk in 2012-2014, said in his new book.
Nesterov, who worked as the space center's director general between 2005 and 2012 and was the chief engineer in 2009-2014, said that Angara, using the RD-191 engine, was "world's best" rocket system. Nesterov also noted that the control and monitoring systems of the rocket were the most up-to-date in Russia.
However, Nesterov argued that the Angara system was constructed for 21 years, between 1993 and 2014, due to the lack of funding. He explained that between 1993 and 2006, the project received only 4 percent of the needed financing, while the funding boosted after 2006 leading to test flights in 2009 with the South Korean KSLV carrier rocket. The engineer also blamed the 2009-2010 financial crisis for preventing the Angara test flights from Plesetsk to begin in 2011-2012.
The Angara family of environmentally-friendly vehicles is designed to carry anywhere between two and 40 tonnes into low Earth orbit. It was the first orbit-capable rocket developed by Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union to replace the older Proton-M rockets.
