by Alexander Redchenko

A spokesman for the Energomash scientific-production corporation said that Russia and South Korea had agreed to build jointly a new booster.

The spokesman explained that Energomash is currently considered to be a leading Russian company to produce liquid-fuel rocket engines. He added that Russia’s Federal Space Agency, or Roskosmos, has recently had fruitful talks with the South Korean side to start bilateral cooperation on producing engines and boosters. The sides agreed to create jointly a brand-new KSLV-2 booster – a project that is expected to follow that of the construction of South Korea’s first launching pad designed for the KSLV-1 booster. With this project coming to a close, time is already ticking for the upcoming blast-off of South Korea’s first national booster, spokespeople for the Institute for Aerospace Studies in Seoul said.

Russian experts also take part in the construction of a launching pad and a space center located in the Kokhyn district of the Cholla-Namdo province. These facilities are currently being built on the basis of Russian technologies – something that is fully in tune with a recently-signed Russia-South Korea agreement on exploring and using outer space for peaceful purposes.

In April of 2008, Russia’s Soyuz spaceship brought South Korea’s first female astronaut Yi Soyeon to the ISS. In addition, Russia successfully develops mutually advantageous cooperation with Indonesia and Malaysia. Last year, the Soyuz spaceship also delivered Malaysian Sheikh Muzafar Shukor to the space outpost, where he worked for a week. Under the Air Start project, construction works to organize an aerospace center on Indonesia’s island of Biak are currently in full swing.