The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology Corporation (MIT, part of Roscosmos) has confirmed that it is already working on the Start-1M super-light launch vehicle.
Yuri Solomonov, General Designer of MIT, told IA "TASS" that it, like the predecessor rockets of the same family, is based on the Topol-M ICBM. The first test launch is scheduled for 2026, and the resources of the Vostochny cosmodrome are not excluded as a launch complex. The exact launch site has not yet been named.
We are following the path that we took with the Start-1 launch vehicle, which was created on the basis of the Topol ICBM. First there must be tests, then there will be marketing offers.
"Pervy Technicheskiy" has already reported on the Start rocket project, which was curtailed in the second half of the 2000s. It is known that after 2019, Russia and Saudi Arabia planned to invest in the modernization of the launch vehicle project, design and manufacture additional parts that the rocket would need after modernization. After that, Start-1 was supposed to start working for the benefit of both states, launching satellites of partner countries into low Earth orbits.
Earlier it became known that a complex for super-heavy rockets will begin to be built at Vostochny in 2025.
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