Russia’s Angara space launch vehicle program has turned out to be heavily dependent on China. According to Dallas Analytics, a Ukrainian firm that examined internal documents of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a significant share of the Russian entity’s manufacturing equipment is supplied by Chinese companies. Russia’s Angara 1.2 launch vehicle is used exclusively for the needs of the country’s Ministry of Defense; meanwhile, the Chinese suppliers helping Russia militarize space are also active in the European and U.S. markets.
Angara-1.2 is a two-stage light-class launch vehicle. Since the rocket’s debut in 2014, it has been involved in eight launches — the most recent of which took place this past April.
Russian authorities are currently investing tens of billions of rubles in scaling up Angara production, according to internal documents reviewed by Dallas Analytics. Materials from the Khrunichev Center show that currently only one Angara 1.2 is produced per year, while plans call for increasing output to four per year. Additionally, there are plans to produce four heavy Angara-A5 rockets annually. To this end, production has begun to be relocated to a plant in Omsk at a cost totaling upwards of 17.5 billion rubles ($220.8 million). At the same time, the documents indicate that Angara production is currently unprofitable.
