PERM, May 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russian rocket engine maker Proton-Permskiye Motory plans to spend 39 million rubles ($1.2 million) on modernizing production of engines for the new super-heavy class Angara carrier rocket, the company’s shareholders said on Friday.
The company has decided not to pay dividends from its 41.3 million rubles ($1.3 million) of corporate profits for 2012, but will spend most of the sum on “technical re-equipping” for serial production of RD-191 engines for the new Angara rocket family, shareholders said after their annual meeting.
Proton-PM, based in the Urals city of Perm, also specializes in producing the RD-276 engines used to power the first stage of Russia’s Proton-M carrier rockets. The company is controlled by the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Russia’s new super-heavy class Angara carrier rocket will be delivered to the Plesetsk space center in early June, for further testing to be completed by next April.
The Angara family of rockets, designed to provide lifting capabilities of between 2,000 and 40,500 kilograms into low earth orbit, has been in development since 1995. The rocket has a liquid-oxygen and kerosene powered first stage and hydrogen-oxygen fuelled second stage.