"The Unified Instrument Manufacturing Corporation is developing a new system of preparing and launching intercontinental ballistic missiles for putting commercial payloads in space. The new launch pad instruments have already undergone preliminary testing. This work is to be completed in 2017," the statement says.
The work is being conducted by the research and industrial association Impuls under a contract with the international space company Kosmotras within the framework of the conversion program Dnepr.
"The program has been effective for many years. The first generation of our system was used to launch heavy rockets RS-20 (Satan under NATO classification), which entered duty back in the 1970s. They have long gone obsolete and now have to be disposed of. We are now working on a next generation system, which is unified and can be used to launch not only RS-20B, but also other missiles being withdrawn from service," the United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation CEO Sergey Skokov said.
The preparation and launch system has been used on more than 20 occasions to put various payloads in space.
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