Russia will debut its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era on Friday in a launch from its own territory, aiming to break a reliance on the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and foreign suppliers, according to Reuters.
More than two decades in the making, the Angara-1.2PP's maiden flight will test Russia's ability to turn around a once-pioneering space industry that is struggling to recover from a brain drain and years of budget curbs, Reuters reported.
Work on the Angara began after the break-up of the Soviet Union when Moscow lost the maker of its Zenit and Dnepr rockets as well as the Baikonur launch site, based respectively in the newly independent republics of Ukraine and Kazakhstan, according to Reuters.
"This is the first launch vehicle that has been developed and built from scratch in Russia," Igor Lissov, an expert with trade journal Novosti Kosmonovatiki, Reuters reported. "Everything else we have is a modernisation of our Soviet legacy."
While Russia continues to use Baikonur under a lease deal with the Kazakh government, Angara will blast off from within its borders at the northern Plesetsk military cosmodrome, according to Reuters. It is due to follow a suborbital flight path across Russia's Arctic coastline.
For some industry insiders, the crisis in Moscow's relations with Kiev over its annexation of Crimea and a separatist rebellion in the eastern Ukraine proves Russia's need to produce and launch its rockets domestically, Reuters reported.
"We are, unfortunately, not even strong enough to dictate our will to Ukraine so this (project) decision was made already way back in 1993, with an awareness that our former Soviet allies can ditch us at any moment," Lissov said, according to Reuters.
The new rocket is a centrepiece of a space industry reform begun by President Vladimir Putin in December that includes building a new launch pad in Russia's Far East, Reuters reported.
"Angara's entry into operation will guarantee Russia's access to low-Earth orbit and the country's independence in the field of space exploration," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told the government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta this month, according to Reuters.
