Russia Left Without The Only Spaceport For Launching Cosmonauts

Belarus will also be affected.

The RTVI television channel reported that Russia was left without a launch site for cosmonauts for at least nine months, and more likely - for a year and a half or two years or even longer. The reason was an accident at the Baikonur Cosmodrome leased by the Russian Federation from Kazakhstan. This will also affect the plans to launch another Belarusian cosmonaut into orbit, writes "Telegraf".

According to the channel's sources, "Roscosmos" is considering three plans of action after the damage to pad #31 at Baikonur as a result of one of the launches. The metal platform - the maintenance cabin - was damaged by a metal structure that collapsed onto it.

The best option for the Russian space agency is to find a "donor platform." This is unlikely, but possible. Such a design could have survived from Soviet times.

But even in this case, launches, and only cargo launches, can be resumed only after 9-12 months. "In Soviet times, everything was made with a reserve, maybe it is lying somewhere - who knows? This construction is big and heavy, maybe there is nothing in reserve. New platforms may differ in details: at Kuru and Vostochny - a slightly different type of launch complex, there is a vertical structure and various technological differences," explained the RTVI interlocutor.

If there is no spare platform, Russian engineers could try to create a simplified and lighter design. However, this would also take 8-12 months, and cosmonauts cannot be launched from it.

At the same time, according to the TV channel's interlocutors, the most realistic scenario assumes that the repair of the launch pad will take from one and a half to two years.

In the most negative development of events, Roscosmos may give up manned launches from Baikonur and try to transfer them to Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome. But there is a problem: it is not adapted for manned launches, only for cargo rockets.

"In a pessimistic scenario, the timeframe for repairing pad 31 could stretch for several years: decisions on it are beginning to be linked to the overall strategy of transition to launches from Vostochny and the project of the ROS station. That is, they actually depend on how much the state is ready to continue investing in Baikonur," the source believes.

But Roscosmos and NASA have an agreement on mutual launches of joint crews to the ISS. This means that, theoretically, Russia can ask the United States to provide delivery of its cosmonauts into orbit.

But plans to launch another Belarusian cosmonaut to the ISS may have come to an end or, at the very least, will be postponed indefinitely.

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