Svobodny (Russian: Свобо́дный) was a Russian rocket launch site used since 1996 and located at 51 degrees north in the Amur Oblast. Originally constructed as a launch site for intercontinental ballistic missiles called Svobodny-18, it was planned as a replacement for Baikonur Cosmodrome, which became a foreign territory after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the development was not finished because of financial difficulties and the construction of a totally new space port.
The final choice for the location of the cosmodrome fell on a military facility near the railway station of Ledianaja, used for several decades by the 27th rocket division of Strategic Rocket Forces[1] In the summer of 1994 President Yeltsin visited the town of Blagoveshensk and the modification of the launch pads in the site began shortly after.[2] On March 1, 1996 the Russian President issued a decree formally declaring the site as a Cosmodrome.[3]
Since 1997 rockets have been launched off launchers of the Start-1 type. Certain launch sites can be modified for rockets of the Rockot (SS-19 based) class. Only five launches have taken place at the underused Svobodny site. In 2005, after the lease renewal of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Russian Space Agency decided it did not require a second space launch complex, and in February 2007 President Vladimir Putin ordered Svobodny closed.[4]
However, the complex launched the Israeli Eros B Satellite on April 25, 2006 aboard a Start class rocket.
In February 2007, a presidential decree formalized the closure of the launch facility in Svobodny. According to the Russian press, in the previous three years, government investments in Svobodny reached 350 million rubles.
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