heavy rocket
© Alexei Savelyev/TASS
Russia's super-heavy carrier rocket scheduled to blast off for the first time from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East in 2028 will be a reusable spacecraft, State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin told TASS on Thursday.

The multiple-use principle "will be formulated as a task during the work on the super-heavy rocket," Rogozin stressed.

According to designers' plans, the Russian super-heavy carrier rocket should be able to deliver over 70 tonnes of cargo into low near-Earth orbit at the first stage. It will be developed to provide for deep space flights, specifically, to the Moon and Mars.

The construction of the infrastructure for the new carrier rocket at the Vostochny cosmodrome is scheduled to begin in 2026 and its first launch will take place in 2028.

The concept of creating a super-heavy carrier rocket envisages maximally utilizing the accumulated potential. Also, basic elements and technologies of the Soyuz-5 medium-class rocket currently under development will be used to create the super-heavy launch vehicle.

According to Roscosmos's estimates, the creation of the super-heavy carrier rocket and the construction of the corresponding infrastructure will cost 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion).

As was reported in early August, Roscosmos has launched preparations for drafting a federal target program for developing a super-heavy carrier rocket.