(Associated Press via NewsEdge) The construction site for Russia's Soyuz launch base in French Guiana was officially opened, deepening collaboration between Europe and Russia in space, officials said.
The inaugural flight from the French South American department will occur at the end of 2008.
The base will be used by two Soyuz spacecraft to carry communication, navigation and Earth observation satellites into space.
'It is only through the joint efforts of Europe, Russia and France that such a bold ambition is becoming a tangible reality before our very eyes,' Anatoly Perminov, Russia's Federal Space Agency chief, said in a statement. 'This mutually beneficial cooperation provides a guarantee that the future exploration of space can only be for peaceful purposes and that it will always be in line with the aspirations of humanity at large.'
The Soyuz launchers will be able to carry up to nearly 3.3 tons of satellite from the base near Kourou, more than the 2 tons they can shuttle from Baikonur in Kazakhstan because the earth moves faster near the equator and that velocity will help hurtle heavier payloads into space.
A stone from the Baikonur launch pad, from which cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the world's first person to go to space, took off in 1961, was deposited on the site at the center that is home to Arianespace, the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency.
Arianespace has shuttled 242 satellites into orbit since the European space consortium was created in 1980. Soyuz spacecraft have launched 1,661 satellites and have carried 91 Russian and 40 non-Russian astronauts into space.
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