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The President congratulated Roscosmos, cosmodrome workers and builders on the successful launch of the carrier rocket.

“I would like to congratulate you all. We have reason to be proud,” Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with rocket launch team and Roscosmos representatives. “This is definitely a very important and significant step forward in the development of the Russian cosmonautics.”

The President was joined for the launch event by Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, General Director of Roscosmos Igor Komarov, Commander of the Russian Space Forces and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces Lieutenant-General Alexander Golovko, First Deputy Director of Roscosmoc Alexander Ivanov, Director of the Federal Agency for Special Construction Alexander Volosov, and the team of builders who took part in the cosmodrome construction.

The launch initially scheduled for April 27, had been postponed for 24 hours following failure in operation of the flight control system.

Vostochny is Russia’s first civilian spaceport for preparation and launch of scientific, socioeconomic and commercial satellites. The main construction works were completed in mid-January of 2016.

The Mikhail Lomonosov satellite is designed to help study transient phenomena in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and magnetosphere and near-Earth radiation environment along with fundamental cosmological studies.

The Aist-2D small satellite is designed to position and control spacecraft and study how external factors in outer space impact spacecraft equipment and satellite body materials.

Nanosatellite Samsat-218 was created by students at Samara State Aerospace University to test orientation control algorithms for this class of spacecraft.

Speech at the meeting with Soyuz-21.a carrier rocket launch team

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends,

I am happy to welcome you to Vostochny, a new and actually the first ever Russian spaceport.

You know that work began here in 2007, when a Presidential Executive Order was signed for creating this complex. We have completed it now.

But this is only the first phase of a challenging project. You have done everything you were supposed to do, and you have done so with great skill.

As you know, computers played it safe and aborted yesterday’s flight to go through their checklists once more. There is no harm done. On the contrary, everything has been done with quality in mind, in the best possible manner.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding. You need a successful first launch to prove that the space centre is ready for work. You have done it. Congratulations!

The construction teams still have much to do yet. The first stage has been completed, but there are more stages ahead. As you know, we plan to build new infrastructure for heavy carrier rockets. We are also considering building infrastructure for super-heavy rockets and manned missions here. I am confident that together we will accomplish this task.

Well begun is half done. Good luck, and thank you.