In the Nizhny Novgorod region, the construction project of the first private cosmodrome in Russia has been suspended. This was announced by Pavel Pushkin, general director of the private space company “Kosmokurs”, which is engaged in the project.
In an interview with RIA Novosti, Pushkin complained about bureaucratic obstacles. “Nothing is being coordinated on the cosmodrome. Everyone is nodding at each other, ”he said.
According to him, a year ago the company agreed with the authorities of the Nizhny Novgorod region on the process of coordinating the sanitary protection zone of the cosmodrome. The corresponding project was sent to the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Rospotrebnadzor, then to the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA), and then to the Federal Rospotrebnadzor. No response was received, the head of the company said.
Work on the project to create a suborbital rocket for launching space tourists has also been suspended, Pushkin said in a comment to TASS. According to him, “Kosmokurs” for the second year has not been able to receive normative documentation from the Ministry of Defense for its design. At the same time, Pushkin noted that the military “speaks everything correctly from a legal point of view,” since the Ministry of Defense is not the customer of the Kosmokurs project.
The government of the Nizhny Novgorod region said : “According to available information, the investor did not refuse to implement the project in the Nizhny Novgorod region.”
The plans to build the first private cosmodrome in Russia became known in March 2019. “Kosmokurs” was going to launch from it ships with space tourists. The construction was planned to be completed in 2025. To create the cosmodrome, they expected to attract 2.6 billion rubles of private investment.
In April 2020, Pavel Pushkin announced that the start of construction of the cosmodrome was postponed, since the company could not agree on a site for it.
In 2020, Kosmokurs became the first private company that Roscosmos admitted to the competition for the creation of a launch vehicle. As a result, the company lost the competition.
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