MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s space agency said on Tuesday that repair work had been completed at a damaged section of a launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that is critical to Moscow’s space programme, Russian state media reported.
The pad was badly damaged in November when a Russian Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut on board blasted off.
The RIA state news agency cited Roscosmos as saying that the first launch from the repaired pad was scheduled for March 22.
While Russia has other cosmodromes on its own territory and Baikonur has other launch sites, the damaged launch pad – number 31 – is the only one able to handle launches of the Soyuz rocket and crew capsule as well as the cargo-only Progress vehicle, which are crucial for the International Space Station.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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