Zvezdochka produced assembly stand for new Angara booster

21.01.2010
Defense shipyard Zvezdochka (Severodvinsk) produced multipurpose assembly stand by order of Plesetsk Space Center; the stand is used for assembling head of new generation space booster Angara equipped with upper stage Breeze, reports the shipyard's press-service.

The shipyard started contract execution late Dec 2008. "The stand's units of for multipurpose space booster rockets Angara were constructed within a year at Russia's northern space center. Shipwrights have successfully met exclusively high requirements for tooling accuracy measured by thousandths of millimeter", said the shipyard's representative.

Zvezdochka has been taking part in Angara project implementation since 2004. Launch pad of this space rocket system was also made in Severodvinsk. Presently, the shipyard builds umbilical tower and rocket erectors. "Works on that contract will be completed by the end of 2010", specified the shipyard's press-service.

Angara is a crucially new and most up-to-date product of Russian rocketry. Khrunichev's National Space Scientific Production Center developed a family of Angara booster rockets of light, medium and heavy classes based on multipurpose rocket module. Booster engines use liquid fuel which is kerosene-oxygen mixture and are considered environmentally safe.

Light-class Angara with lifting capacity of up to 2 tonnes is designed to boost small telecomm space vehicles into orbit. Second modification is capable to boost twice as much payload. Third type of the rocket with lifting capacity of over 20 tonnes is being prepared to shift Proton which is shot from Baikonur Space Center, Kazakhstan.

First launch of perspective light-class rocket booster Angara from unified launch site at Plesetsk Space Center is scheduled on 2011.

Source: ITAR-TASS, photo: Angara space booster (FSUE PO Polet)