Specialists of the Vostochny Space Center together with the RSC “Progress”(parts of the Roscosmos State Corporation) on January 10, 2020, began preparing the components of “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicles.

In the Unified Technical Complex warehouse, a joint team of representatives of the space and rocket industry enterprises began work on opening containers with launcher blocks, removing the pressure seal from the blocks and transporting the launcher to the Assembly and Testing building for assembly into a “package” (stages 1 and 2 ).

In the near future, experts will begin electrical checks on single blocks, after which the assembly of the “package” of the launch vehicle will begin.

A special train with blocks of three “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicles, as well as two head fairings for the “Soyuz-2.1b” rocket, arrived on December 25, 2019 at the Ledyanaya station, located close to the Vostochny spaceport.

Specialists of the Vostochny Space Center met the train, after which it was transported to the warehouse of the Unified Technical Complex.

The components of two more launch vehicles: “Soyuz-2.1a” and “Soyuz-2.1b”, as well as the head fairing for the “Soyuz-2.1b” rocket arrived at the cosmodrome in August 2019 and are in storage in the Assembly and Testing building of the launch vehicles.

The launch of the “Soyuz-2.1b” launch vehicle is planned as part of the OneWeb launch campaign in 2020.