Page 82 - bne magazine February 2022_20220208

82 I Eurasia bne February 2022
Kazakhstan: New Baikonur launch
facility to be named after Nazarbayev
Almaz Kumenov for Eurasianet
Arocket launch facility set to begin construction next year
in southern Kazakhstan is
to be named after former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, a senior official has said.
The Nazarbayev Start, which is being built jointly with Russia at the Baikonur cosmodrome, will accommodate new-generation craft designed to
have a reduced environmental impact compared to those currently in use.
Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Minister Bagdat Musin said on December 14 that
a definitive decision on whether the facility will retain Nazarbayev’s name will be made after initial construction work is complete.
The idea to bestow the former Kazakh leader’s name upon the launchpad
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appears to have initiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019.
The intended purpose of the new platform is to launch Soyuz-5 vehicles, which will run on relatively clean naphthyl fuel, instead of the toxic heptyl required by the
until 2050. Moreover, Kazakhstan has seemingly struggled to secure adequate compensation for these incidents.
Construction of the new complex has been serially delayed since an initial agreement on the project between
“The idea to bestow the former Kazakh leader’s name upon the Launchpad appears to have initiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019”
heavy-lift Proton rocket currently used to carry heavy cargo into space.
Spills of heptyl rocket fuel over Kazakhstan’s land in the past have bred strong resentment over operations at Baikonur, which is under lease to Russia
Kazakhstan and Russian was reached
in 2004. Cost estimates have ballooned around sevenfold to $2bn as the joint developers failed to agree on what launch vehicle was to be used at the facility.
Nur-Sultan and Moscow only managed