The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has signed a decree to reserve, for seven years, a 103,546-ha site in the Amur Province for the construction of the Vostochny spaceport. T
he document stipulates that any activity associated with the sale of the land, ownership or the construction of buildings which is not related to the spaceport on the reserved site is prohibited without the consent of Roscosmos.
The Vostochny spaceport project will be implemented in stages, with construction due to begin in 2011.
In 2015 the first unmanned launch will take place, and the launch of the space shuttle is planned for 2018. The construction of Vostochny will require an investment of 8.7bn euros.
At present, Russia's main spaceport is Baykonur, which it is renting from the Kazakh government until 2050.
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