The agreement on the use of the French launching site to put Russian Soyuz rockets in a near-earth orbit was signed by Boris Aleshin and the French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin as part of the Russian-French summit in Paris on November 7, 2003. Launches from the equator make it possible to increase the payload by almost three times.
In Mr Aleshin’s opinion, the agreement with the French partners was a major success for the Russian space industry. The implementation of the agreement will bring more investments into the national aerospace industry. Just at the stage of preparing the launching site Russian organisations will get more than 120 million euros.
At the same time, the states taking part in the project must urgently determine the schedule of project financing for the long term. Boris Aleshin said that Italy had shown an interest in the project, while the French are ready to foot 50% of the bill in the future.