The space facility where Russian President Vladimir Putin received North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Wednesday reflects Russia’s desire to recover the scientific glory that faded after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Vostochny Cosmodrome has a checkered historycharacterized by construction delays and numerous cases of corruption.
The creation of the installation
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia paid Kazakhstan for the use of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and continued to use it for most of its launches. The agreement with Kazakhstan allows Russia to continue using Baikonur for $115 million a year until 2050.
The slightly smaller Plesetsk platform in northwest Russia has been used for some military satellite launches and missile tests.
Amid occasional disputes with Kazakhstan over Baikonur, Russian authorities have declared that the country needs a own space facility, although they have emphasized that for now they will continue using Baikonur.
In 2007, Putin signed a decree to create Vostochny (“eastern” in Russian) on the site of a Soviet-era missile base, but construction began only five years later.
Difficult construction
Vostochny’s location, in an unexplored and almost uninhabited area of Russia’s Far East, has added to the cost and duration of construction works.
The project, costing billions of dollars, has been plagued by delays, worker protests over poor pay and allegations of endemic corruption. The managers of several companies involved in the project were convicted of embezzlement of public funds and the mayor of the town of Tsiolkovsky, where the workers live, was convicted of fraud.
The first launch from Vostochny was going to be in 2015 but was postponed until the following year. In 2018, an inspection found holes in the ground beneath the platform, which were blamed on faulty construction and required more funds to repair.
The first facility in Vostochny, which was to launch Soyuz rockets, was completed in 2016. The second platform, designed for the new Angara rockets, is still being built, but its operation has been postponed several times.
Limited use
Following its inaugural launch in April 2016, Vostochny has seen only limited use, as Russian company Roscosmos continues to use Baikonur for the vast majority of its takeoffs.
One of the most prominent missions launched from Vostochny was Luna-25, an ambitious but failed attempt by Russia to return to the Moon. The Luna-25 probe crashed into the lunar surface last month due to a defect that caused its thrusters to run longer than scheduled.
(With information from AP)
Source-www.infobae.com