There are only few places in the world where rockets lift off. That short list will get a little longer on Tuesday, when Russia plans to open a new gleaming gateway to orbit.

The Vostochny (Eastern) Cosmodrome should officially enter service with the launch of a Soyuz rocket scheduled for 10:01 p.m. EDT on April 26. The first mission from a brand new launch pad will deliver three satellites into the Earth's orbit—and it could deliver much more than that. Situated far out in the midst of evergreen forests in the far eastern corner of Russia, just north of the Chinese border, the new cosmodrome was designed to finally give Moscow total say over its own space program.

An aerial view of the Soyuz launch pad in Vostochny and the processing complex

The problem goes back a quarter of a century, when the collapse of the Soviet Union left the former superpower's main spaceport of Baikonur in the newly independent republic of Kazakhstan. Moscow eventually settled the dispute with Kazakhstan over Baikonur and now pays the country $115 million in annual rent to use it. But some disagreements have persisted, especially over the environmental and economic damage from failed launches that rained toxic debris below the rocket's path, sometimes in populated areas.

Obviously, the Kremlin would prefer to build a full-fledged spaceport inside the country and quit paying rent to a former Soviet republic. Yet plans remained on paper for years because of the tremendous cost of the project. Meanwhile, Russian space officials always managed to resolve ongoing disputes with Kazakhstan thanks to cash and political maneuvering.

One construction manager was caught driving a diamond-encrusted Mercedes

In 2007, things changed. The booming oil price and increasing revenues in the Kremlin's coffers prompted Vladimir Putin to commit to the new launch site. The Russian leadership saw Vostochny as not only an insurance policy against potential political problems with Kazakhstan, but also an anchor for the Russian population in this remote region of Russia, which has begun to see more encroachment by China.

Putin declared Vostochny his pet project, much as he did for the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. No expense would be spared. The Kremlin demanded to fire the first rocket from the site in 2015 no matter what. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who took over the supervision of the beleaguered project in 2012, even promised to sacrifice a tooth if the launch pad would not be ready in time.

It wasn't. Despite all the declarations, and Rogozin's countless trips across six time zones to visit the remote site and try to accelerate construction, Vostochny was marred by corruption, mismanagement, and delays. One construction manager was caught driving a diamond-encrusted Mercedes, while many other top officials were accused of stealing federal funds to buy houses, yachts, and other luxury goods. In the meantime, up to 5,900 employees—the majority of the center's workforce—went for months without pay.

Last year, on the eve of the annual press conference with Putin known in Russia as "the Direct Line with the President," a large group of workers went on a hunger strike and then made a direct appeal to the president on live TV to fix the situation. Putin promised to help, and extra millions were disbursed to Vostochny. Even so, in the days before the next "Direct Line with the President," local police detained a leader of that previous protest, according to Internet reports. That should tell you how well things were going out there.

A Soyuz rocket is installed on its launch pad in Vostochny.

In the end, Vostochny spaceport was largely completed around four months behind schedule, which can be considered a minor delay given the tremendous scale and complexity of the work. In addition to the monumental launch pad for the Soyuz rocket, Vostochny has a brand-new town, a railway station, a ground control center, and many other support facilities.

However, Vostochny's most precious jewel is the sprawling assembly and processing complex featuring colossal natural-light lit buildings used to prepare rockets and spacecraft for launch. For the first time in the history of space infrastructure, a single transport artery interconnects the five-building complex with an indoor cargo platform shuttling people and gear from end to end. Engineers can now put together their rockets in a controlled environment, wearing short sleeves even in the midst of Siberia. Moreover, the entire facility was designed to be expandable and upgradable, so future buildings could be "plugged in" as new spaceships and rockets come along.

Roskosmos promises to bring the new-generation Angara family of rockets to Vostochny by 2021. Anatoly Zak

They'll need it, because, Russian space agency Roskosmos plans to bring next-generation Angara boosters, a follow-up to the veteran Soyuz rocket, to Vostochny within the next decade. According to the current plans, a new launch pad for the Angara-5 rocket should be ready in 2021. Two years later, the same booster should be certified for carrying the next-generation spacecraft, dubbed Federatsiya (federation) during an unmanned test flight and then when it carries a crew to the International Space Station in 2023. The Federatsiya could then launch from Vostochny on missions to the Moon in the 2030s.

Despite the ambitious plans, Vostochny will have a slow start. The controversial decision to bring the 60-year old Soyuz family to the new launch site meant that the remote spaceport had to compete with the rocket's other launch sites in Kazakhstan, in Plesetsk in Northern Russia, and in Kourou, French Guiana. Plus it was not easy to recruit qualified personnel willing to relocate to eastern Siberia.

The Kremlin's fears of Kazakh ban on all space launches from Baikonur never materialized. And since that longstanding site is still active, Roskosmos currently has few missions to fly from Vostochny. Only a single launch per year is scheduled this year and next. Last year, though, a European startup called OneWeb promised to book as many as eight Soyuz rockets per year beginning in 2018 to deploy its satellite constellation for the global Internet network. For such an unprecedented pace of launches, an extra pad in Vostochny could finally come handy.

Anatoly Zak

Anatoly Zak is the publisher of RussianSpaceWeb.com and the author of Russia in Space: the Past Explained, the Future Explored

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