A new generation space rocket engine, designed to propel Soyuz and Angara rocket vehicles, was successfully tested in Voronezh, a city 450 kilometres south of Moscow.
A spokesman for the Voronezh regional administration's main department of industry, transport, and communications said the RD-0124 engine is more powerful than those currently used in rockets, which among other advantages allows for the orbiting of cargoes a ton heavier than before. A joint Russian-French project, the engine is to be used to launch rockets from the Russian launch sites of Baikonur and Plisetsk, as well as the Kourou launch pad in French Guiana. The engine will be used for the first time to launch a French satellite from Baikonur in 2006.
"Several years later similar launches will be conducted at the Kourou Space Center, where launch pads are still to be built" - Vladimir Rachuk, director general of the Voronezh Design Bureau of Chemical Automatics.
Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Rosatom), is expected to visit the Voronezh Design Bureau and a number of other space industry enterprises on Tuesday.
