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Work on foundation of Angara pad in Vostochny In 2019, despite major organizational issues, earth-moving equipment finally began excavating foundations for key facilities of the Angara pad in Vostochny and, by the end of summer, the first concrete was laid at the site.
A depiction of the Angara launch complex released by Roskosmos in 2019. Roskosmos cancels Angara pad contract The Roskosmos State Corporation cancelled the agreement with the troubled PSO Kazan company to build the launch pad for the Angara rocket in Vostochny. The contract for the development of the second phase of the new spaceport, which included the Angara launch complex, was signed last fall after many delays. Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, who curates the space and defense industry for the Russian government, announced the news on January 23 after the latest meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev dedicated to financial problems at Roskosmos. Medvedev singled out Vostochny as a symptomatic example of poor management at the State Corporation. Only five out of 19 facilities were officially completed in Vostochny in the first phase of construction by the deadline last year, Medvedev said, according to the public recap of the meeting released by the Russian government. After the closed-door event, Borisov told journalists that the aborted contract on the Angara pad cost the project at least six months in delays, but, he essentially admitted that the actual completion of the critically needed facility would be pushed back by around two years. "Let's not have any illusions, nobody will be able to build (Angara pad) by 2021," Borisov told reporters about the recent official deadline for the project, "Today, due to the juggling of prime contractors, the deadline is beyond 2021, but it (has to be) no later than 2023, because otherwise, it would be desynchronized with the development of the rocket, which would be ready but no place to launch from." Borisov referred to the Angara-5M rocket, which was promised to replace the Proton rocket on the commercial launch market, however the new vehicle also needs a new launch pad and the processing infrastructure for large satellites in order to compete internationally. The current Angara pad at the military launch site in Plesetsk lacks infrastructure for commercial users and its geographical position puts the vehicle at disadvantage relative to its competitors around the world. Borisov did not name the new prime contractor for the Angara pad in Vostochny or say when such organization would be selected. However, he assured reporters that the government would not freeze the construction despite multiple criminal cases associated with the spaceport, the essential bankruptcy of its developers, the breach of contracts and lagging schedules. According to Borisov, a total of 28 billion rubles remained unspent during the first development phase, which focused on the Soyuz launch facility. However, he explained that considerable money unspent by bankrupt contractors is tied up in courts, so, in order to avoid further delays in construction, Roskosmos would have to fund the same activities again, in the hope of returning some of the original payments later. Borisov also confirmed plans to introduce a third launch pad in Vostochny in 2023, this time for the Soyuz-5/Irtysh family. The same facility will be designed to be compatible with the Yenisei super-heavy rocket, which will use a first stage based on the Soyuz-5 boosters. However, Borisov warned that delays with the construction of the Angara pad could also have a schedule conflict with the development of the Soyuz-5/super-heavy facilities in Vostochny. On January 29, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Roskosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko as promising to award a new contract for the Angara launch pad in Vostochny "before beginning of spring." Assembly of Angara's new launch tower begins
On February 12, the AO Tyazhmash company announced that it had begun the first phase of assembly of the fueling and umbilical tower for the Vostochny launch pad designed to host the Angara rockets. At the time, Tyazhmash completed two base trusses of the tower weighing a total of 60 tons and representing the first level of the 17-level structure. The first phase of the assembly, considered to be the most complex and labor intensive, involved putting together the four lower levels of the tower and had to ensure the stability of the entire future structure, Tyazhmash said. According the company, the entire assembly process was split into six phases and was expected to be underway in parallel with the production of the tower's components. The production of the truss assemblies began in 2018. New contractors are bidding for the project On February 20, theBell.io web site reported that the Crocus Group construction company could get a contract for the Angara pad in Vostochny. The company is led by Aras Agalarov, infamous for his family's involvement in the effort of the Russian government to elect Donald Trump the president of the United States. According to the publication, the talks between Roskosmos and the Crocus Group were still ongoing at the time. Crocus apparently had no experience in building space-related infrastructure, but it has been previously involved in the construction of stadiums in various regions of Russia and other federally funded facilities in the Russian Far East. According to the Head of Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin, the necessary funds for the second phase of construction in Vostochny were secured on March 20. In an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel on March 22, Rogozin said that besides the Crocus Group, two other companies had been in final negotiations with the State Corporation for the role of the prime contractor: Stroitransgaz and Stroigazmontazh. One of these companies was ready to confirm its readiness to mobilize the workforce and equipment for in-time completion of the facility before the end of 2023, Rogozin said. Rogozin also said that during the short-lived contract with PSO Kazan, which was in the final stage of nullification, Roskosmos had paid the company a small amount of money which allowed it to clear the site for the construction of the Angara pad and order from the 31st research institute of the Ministry of Defense to produce the design and financial documentation for the pad. According to Rogozin, the design documentation was almost ready, but he would not authorize the actual construction at the Angara site until all the design documentation for the facility was ready, remembering a lesson from the first phase of the Vostochny's development, when changes were required on already erected facilities. At the time, Rogozin promised to begin the construction at the end of April or the beginning of May 2019. Rogozin also promised to report on the status of the second phase of Vostochny to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev before March 30. On May 24, the Russian government published a newly signed order by President Putin, approving the 19-member commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko to supervise the development of the Vostochny spaceport. Original contractor to build Angara pad
Foundation of the Angara's firing room blockhouse circa June 2019. Roskosmos State Corporation apparently gave the green light to build the launch pad for the Angara rocket at Vostochny Cosmodrome to PSO Kazan, the same contractor that had been declared unfit for that work less than five months earlier. On May 31, the official TASS news agency, quoting unnamed sources in the construction business, reported that the troubled company would continue the project and that its contract with Roskosmos had remained in force. According to TASS, the issues preventing PSO Kazan from fulfilling the agreement with Roskosmos were resolved and the company was now shipping construction equipment to Vostochny, while some work at the Angara launch site had already started. The TASS report coincided with a statement on Twitter by Roskosmos Head Dmitry Rogozin, saying "echelons are heading to Vostochny." Around the same time, Roskosmos and PSO Kazan reportedly confirmed to the Russian media that the contract for the Angara pad was still in place. (866) Independent observers were puzzled by the sudden about-face and wondered whether Roskosmos had such a toxic reputation in the construction business that it had failed to attract any other contender for the job and, as a result, the State Corporation had no choice but to keep the original contractor on the hook. In his July 24 interview with the TheBell.io web site, the head of the Crocus Group Araz Agalarov said that he had refused to participate in the project, because the price of the contract was based on the 2014 dollar exchange rate and, as a result, was eight billion rubles short of the construction cost estimated by the Crocus Group. According to Agalarov, other leading figures in the Russian construction business, Arkady Rotenberg (head of Stroitransgaz) and Gennady Timchenko (head of the Volga Group) had also refused to take part in the project. Likely referring to the Russian government's meeting on January 23, Agalarov said that a recent discussion of Vostochny chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Borisov had turned into a long quarrel over the unfinished first phase of Vostochny and the slow construction of the second phase. Concrete work is underway at the Angara launch facility in Vostochny
View of the future propellant depot at the Angara launch complex released by Roskosmos on Sept. 2, 2019. On June 23, Head of Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin posted a video of excavation work at the Angara launch site, adding that the mobilization of construction workers and machinery for the project was ongoing. Rogozin promised that the concrete work at the future pad would begin sometime in the Fall (of 2019). Photos that Rogozin posted on Twitter on July 19 appeared to show workers installing metal framework for reinforced concrete. However, speaking at the TsNIIMash research institute in Korolev on July 26, Rogozin said that the second phase of construction in Vostochny had been hampered by month-long rains in the region, flooding the already excavated foundation of the Angara pad. Still, Rogozin insisted that the contractors were on schedule to complete the construction of the pad in 2022 (after 40 months of construction, according to the contract) and to support the launch of the first rocket from the site in 2023. On September 2, Rogozin announced that 1.5 thousand cubic meters of concrete had been poured at the Angara site. On the eve of the September 6 visit to Vostochny by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Prime-Minister Yuri Borisov told the Vedomosti newspaper that nobody was satisfied with the construction pace either during the first or the second phase of development in Vostochny, to which Rogozin responded with a tweet that "there are always those who build and those who criticize" -- a rare public rebuke to a senior official. At the same time, Roskosmos published another series of photos showing active work at the Angara site, in particular, workers pouring concrete. The State Corporation's press release said that the specialists from PSO Kazan had been conducting concrete works at the foundation of the launch complex. The locations of activities shown on the photos matched the expected sites of the firing control bunker for the Angara rocket and a possible underground propellant storage facilities. Also, on September 5, the TASS news agency quoted an industry official as saying that the construction had been proceeding around one month ahead of schedule. According to Rogozin, the construction of Facility No. 7 (oxygen and nitrogen storage) at the Angara pad was 1.5 months ahead of schedule, but he warned that such advantage could be eaten up really quickly by a major weather event, such as flooding, which almost paralyzed excavation work in the Summer of 2019. Rogozin was also quoted as saying that a total of 615 specialists were involved in construction, but the workforce at the site would grow to 2,200 by the end of September and up to 5,000 would be working there by the Summer of 2020. Rogozin also said that Vladimir Putin had rejected the recent idea by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov to involve a military-run agency into the project to support PSO Kazan. According to Rogozin, Roskosmos had all necessary resources and expertise to complete the Angara pad. During his report to Putin on September 6, Head of Roskosmos Directorate for Vostochny development Evgeny Rogoza said that at that time, the active construction had been taking place at 14 different facilities of the spaceport. They included the oxygen and nitrogen depot, the water storage, the firing control blockhouse, a hostel complex for 2,000 people, two concrete plants and other facilities. According to Rogoza, the engineering hardware had already been delivered for five technical facilities of the complex and systems for two more facilities had been expected before the end of the year. The equipment for 20 other facilities was scheduled for shipment in 2020 and for remaining eight facilities by the middle of 2021. Some of the oversized hardware had to be delivered over the northern sea route (via Arctic and Pacific Oceans along Russia's northern and eastern coasts), Rogoza said. Excavation goes in full swing at the heart of the Angara launch complex
An aerial view shows what appears to be initial excavation work (background) at the future launch pad of the Angara rocket circa September 2019. At the beginning of October, satellite photos revealed active excavation work at the Angara pad, known as Facility 1, in addition to other support infrastructure of the launch complex, where by that time, the work had already passed the excavation phase and reached the concrete-laying stage. Roskosmos confirmed that fact in early October, in its posting on Russian social media. The State Corporation listed following facilities under construction and their status:
However, according to the contract documentation, the construction of Facility 1 was supposed to begin on February 15, 2019, in order to guarantee the first launch from the site in December 2023. Despite what appeared to be an emerging year-long lag in the schedule, in September, Head of Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin promised the first launch of Angara-5 from Vostochny at the end of Summer 2023. In the meantime, on October 16, AO Tyazhmash shipped components comprising the 4th and 7th levels of the Umbilical and Fueling Tower, KZB, (INSIDER CONTENT) to Vostochny. Two days later, the administration of Severodvinsk in Northern Russia announced that AO Promyshlennye Tekhnologii had conducted tests of the launch table for the new Angara pad. Specialists from Roskosmos' TsEKNI ground infrastructure contractor were present during the tests, according to the October 18 press release. The winter came early to Vostochny in 2019, with the first snow blanketing the center by October 25. However Rogozin assured the media that everything had been ready for the cold season. At that time, around 1,200 workers had been deployed at the site, according to the Head of Roskosmos. Water-supply system shipped At the end of November, AO Uralkriomash reported that it shipped water supply system for the Angara pad to Vostochny and in December, the TsENKI teams and their contractors completed installation of propellant tanks for storing and distributing liquid oxygen and nitrogen at Facility No. 7 of the launch complex.
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