After being grounded for four months, Russia’s accident prone Proton booster will be back in action Sunday morning with officials once again praying it launches a payload into space rather than back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Russian officials are moving ahead with an expensive plan to overhaul Proton’s builder, Khrunichev, to allow it to compete with American start-up SpaceX on price and to produce a new family of Angara boosters.

A Proton-M/Briz-M is set to lift off from Baikonur at 0224 local time (2024 GMT or 4:24 p.m. EDT) with the classified Olymp military satellite.

The Russian booster has been grounded since May 16 when faulty turbopump caused the third stage and Express АМ4R communications satellite to re-enter the Earth atmosphere over China.

The Khunichev-built Proton has been plagued by failures in recent years. The most spectacular occurred in July 2013 when a Proton rocket nose dived into the Baikonur Cosmodrome and exploded in a fireball. That accident was blamed on a sensor that had been installed upside down.

As Proton returns to flight, the Russian government is attempting an intervention aimed at saving Khrunichev. The effort includes a government takeover of the company and an expensive revamp of its production capabilities aimed at improving quality control, efficiency and competitiveness.

The takeover is being led by United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), a fully government owned company that is consolidating Russia’s space sector under its control. URSC is acquiring full shares in Khrunichev.

In August, USRC gave a preliminary estimate of 30 billion rubles ($825 million) to overhaul Khrunichev. At the time, they said a final estimate was due at the end of September.

A key goal is to improve the quality control of Proton boosters and make them competitive with SpaceX’s cut-rate Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters, according to URSC’s deputy director general for economics and finance.

“If Space X offers on the market the prices and quality it is talking about and if it can put its Falcon 9 into a geostationary transfer orbit for $55.5 million, then they will be targeting a segment of satellites lighter than 4.5 tons, which is quite big. We can also achieve this level of costs, slightly higher,” he said. If the $81 million Falcon Heavy rocket proves successful as well, “we will see a new price format on the market”, Popov said. “Will we be able to compete with this price? I think we will, but we will have to invest in development,” the official added. The corporation and the Khrunichev Space Center have been offering their Proton heavy lift launch vehicle services at prices exceeding $100 million as all key players such as Ariane-5 and Atlas have raised their prices for different reasons. “If we look at them, the fair price of a launch will be above $105 million, and we think it will keep growing,” Popov said.

URSC is also planning an overhaul of Khrunichev’s production capabilities to allow the company to produce both Protons and the new Angara launch vehicle family. The first Angara rocket made a suborbital flight in July.

The plan calls for the creation of two two “highly effective and compact” plants in Moscow and Omsk. The Moscow plant would focus on production of Proton boosters while Angara rockets would be produced in Omsk.

The production of Proton rockets would be gradually reduced from 11 this year to 5 in 2025 as Khrunichev increases its output of Angara boosters.

“Since 2021, Proton [carrier rocket] will be used almost exclusively for commercial launches. Angara is to be used for federal launches, starting in 2018. There will be seven launches per year between 2023-2025. But on average, we’ll have about five of them,” Popov said. The Center is to build one Angara rocket this year and one next year, with no plans for further construction in 2016-2017, according to the document. From 2018 to 2020, the company will produce two rockets a year, and four in 2021-2022. According to the presentation in 2023, the Center will produce six rockets, and in 2024-2025 seven Angara-A5 rockets will be produced annually.

Angara is a modular family of boosters capable of placing payloads weighing between 2 metric tons and 24.5 metric tons into Earth orbit.