"Our Souyz carrier rockets will have to travel a long distance before they reach the space center," a source at Rosaviakosmos (the Russian Space Agency) told RIA Novosti.
According to him, the first Russian rockets will be delivered to St. Petersburg by railroad from a manufacturing plant in Samara (Volga area). The rockets will then be loaded onto a vessel owned by Arianespace, a European company.
Arianespace has two vessels to transport components of spaceships and payloads, the source said.
The source specified that the Russian Souyz rockets will be launched from a special Russian-built launch site instead of the launch pad used to launch French Ariane rockets.
The first Souyz-ST is scheduled to be launched in late 2006 or early 2007.
