page_title: Vostochny Cosmodrome
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Vostochny Cosmodrome / History / Construction
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Президент России Владимир Путин на космодроме Восточный
context_page_description: The Vostochny Cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport above the 51st parallel north in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian Far East. It is intended to reduce Russia's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The first launch took place on 28 April 2016 at 02:01 UTC. As of July 2019, five launch attempts have been made with four successes.
context_section_description: Early plans projected that seven launch pads would be built at the site, including two for crewed flights. On 1 September 2009, Medvedev signed Presidential decree No. 562 designating Spetstroy as the cosmodrome's sole construction contractor. Construction began in January 2011 and was expected to be completed by 2018. Russian engineers looked to apply knowledge gained from building the Soyuz launch facilities in Kourou spaceport and the Angara pad at Naro Space Center in South Korea. As a cost-saving measure, no defensive military structures like those at Baikonur cosmodrome will be built at Vostochny. More than 400 social, engineering and transport infrastructure facilities, 115 kilometres (71 mi) of roads and 125 kilometres (78 mi) of railway lines are projected to be built at the cosmodrome.
  In December 2011, ARMS-TASS reported with reference to the director of the Federal Special Construction Agency, Grigory Naginsky, that hotels and barracks were being constructed within the cosmodrome. Regarding housing plans, he noted that a town for 40 thousand people would be built near the cosmodrome.
  In January 2012, a Russian Government Decree signed by Prime Minister Medvedev transferred 9,663 hectares (23,880 acres) of forest lands in the Amur Oblast for construction of the spaceport from Shimanovsky and Svobodensky districts.
  On 2 March 2012, Deputy Prosecutor General Yuri Gulyagin said at a meeting with the Presidential representative in the Far Eastern Federal District Viktor Ishayev that timely payment of wages, as well as registration of vehicles and people involved in the construction of the cosmodrome, will soon be the focus of regulatory authorities. According to him, construction of the launch site should not be admitted to the violations that were in the construction of the 2012 APEC Summit projects. As noted at the meeting, the number of workers and organizations each month will only increase, and therefore requires strict control. The number of employees at the facility by the end of 2012 was projected to increase from 5,000 to 7,000.
  In April 2013, Minister of Far Eastern Development Viktor Ishayev said that 2014 will be the busiest year in the construction period and the number of workers will rise to 7,000. He also said he was sorry for the delay in reconstructing and developing worker residence sites that were handed over by the Russian Ministry of Defense in Tsiolkovsky. On 12 April 2013, which is Cosmonautics Day in Russia, Putin suggested naming the town that will be built near the cosmodrome after the founder of theoretical astronautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, saying that there was not a single locality in Russia bearing the name of the scientist. Later it was decided to assign this name to Uglegorsk, the nearest city.
  In November 2013, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported that the three-month delay that existed in July was reduced by November to 10 days. By this time the first stage of the project, the construction of roads at the cosmodrome, had been completed. As of November 2013, more than 4,000 personnel, 680 pieces of construction equipment and vehicles were working at the site. With personnel working on a rotational basis, the overall number of people involved in the project had reached 5,246.
  In December 2013, specialists chose sites for Angara facilities at the cosmodrome and transported the mockup of a carrier rocket from Moscow-based Khrunichev Space Center to the spaceport.
  In March 2014, Russia's federal network grid operator FGC UES completed the first phase of power supply to the cosmodrome. The first phase consists of a modernized "Ledyanaya" 220 kV substation which connects power receivers for complex structures to the Unified National Power Grid. In the same month, Spetstroy said it was hoping to finish building the launch pad for Soyuz-2 carrier rockets before the end of July 2015.
  In July 2015, reconstruction of the Ledyanaya railway station was completed; it includes a garage, service and domestic building and treatment facilities, 20 new turnouts and communications systems. In the sh
caption: The President of Russia Vladimir Putin in Vostochny Cosmodrome, on 14 October 2015
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