SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Russia has spent nearly $1 billion on the development of the new Soyuz-5 rocket:

The Soviet Union created the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 1955 to serve as a test site for intercontinental ballistic missiles. A few years later it became the world's first spaceport with the launch of the historic Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 missions. The sprawling cosmodrome was a mainstay of the Soviet space program.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia began to lease the spaceport from the government of Kazakhstan and currently has an agreement to use the facilities through the year 2050. Russia pays an annual lease fee of about $100 million. Neither country is particularly happy with the relationship; the Kazakh government feels like it is under-compensated, and the Russian government would like it to be in its own country, which is why it has moved in recent years to build a new launch site for most of its rockets in the Far East of Russia, at Vostochny.

[...] Earlier this month a Kazakh news site, KZ24, reported that the Republic of Kazakhstan had seized the property of TsENKI, the Center for Utilization of Ground-based Space Infrastructure, in Kazakhstan. This firm, which is a subsidiary of Roscosmos, is responsible for launch pads and ground support equipment for the Russian space corporation. According to the report, which was translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, TsENKI is barred from removing any assets or materials from Kazakhstan.

[...] Russia has already spent nearly $1 billion on the development of the new Soyuz-5 rocket and plans for its launch site and ground services. When Ars wrote about the rocket's development back in 2017, it was slated for a debut in 2021. Now it is unlikely to debut before at least 2024—and given the current dispute with Kazakhstan, it likely will be delayed much longer into the future.

Original Submission