Purpose
The main purpose of the Angara rocket family is to secure Russia's independent access to space. Angara will reduce Russia's dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in the independent republic of Kazakhstan, and will allow Russia to phase out foreign — mostly Ukrainian — rocket technology. Environmental issues have also played an important part in the development.
Rockets belonging to the family are intended to replace several existing launch vehicles. The light Angara 1.1 and 1.2 versions will replace the Kosmos-3M, Tsyklon and Rockot launchers; Angara 3 will replace the Ukrainian Zenit, and Angara 5 will replace the heavy-lift Proton. The Angara 5 version is expected to be most in demand, since this is the main version required by the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Khrunichev has also been developing a super-heavy-lift version (Angara 7), which is capable of orbiting payload of between 45 and 75 tons, and for which there is no equivalent in Russia's current rocket fleet. However, currently the development of Angara 7 is not receiving government funding. In addition, Khrunichev has offered to build a version capable of launching manned spacecraft: Angara 5P.
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