Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin believes that the Sea Launch rocket and space complex should be preserved and modernized for Soyuz-5 launches. According to him, “it makes sense” to find a foreign partner.
“In order to share the risks and the financial burden in the first instance, as well as to jointly operate the complex in the future, it makes sense to find a foreign partner who, due to its geographical location, cannot have spaceport on its territory. and would be interested in a partnership on a floating spaceport,” Rogozin told Roscosmos magazine “Russian Space” (.pdf).
The head of Roscosmos believes that Sea Launch is a unique facility ahead of its time. He noted that it’s only now that SpaceX and Chinese companies are developing “something similar.” “On the other hand, the private company S7, which wanted to invest in the modernization of the complex, lost its “fat” due to the pandemic, sanctions on the supply of components to Russia and the financial losses of the airline due to lockdown,” Mr. Rogozin said.
The Sea Launch floating rocket and space complex was created in the early 1990s by companies from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Norway. It consists of the Odyssey platform and the assembly and command ship Sea Launch Commander. Spacecraft launches were halted in 2014 due to the unprofitability of the project. In 2016, Sea Launch was acquired by S7 Space from RSC Energia for $160 million.
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