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02Jan16


Construction workers at Vostochny space center waive New Year days off


Builders at the Vostochny Space Center, a new spacecraft and satellite launch facility under construction in Russia's Far-Eastern Amur region, have decided to waive the New Year/Christmas mini-vacation that usually lasts ten days and resume work on January 2 after a break that lasted one day only, the press service of Dalspetsstroi federal enterprise told TASS on Saturday.

Friday, December 31 was also a workday for the specialists and workers engaged in construction of the new space center.

Building the facility are more than 4,600 workers who have 815 specialized vehicles and other units of technology at their disposal. The importance of continuing work during the country's official New Year break stems from the specific character of the technological processes.

"A facility under construction is a living organism that develops regardless of calendar dates," a spokesman for Dalstpetssroi said.

Security measures have been tightened at Vostochny for the holiday period, with teams for elimination of possible emergency situations on duty round the clock. Also, special process meeting with workers have been held where officials have given supplementary instructions on what should be done in case of emergency situations.

In 2015, a huge breakthrough was attained at Vostochny in terms of construction and assembly works, the press service said. At peak periods, the combined workforce engaged in the project reached more than 10,000 and the number of specialized vehicles dispatched there exceeded 1,000.

Along with professional construction workers, more than 1,400 students organized in temporary construction teams worked at the site. They came from universities in colleges in 27 regions of the country.

"Engineers and technology experts now are doing a huge amount of work related to the documentation essential for commissioning the facility," the Dalspetsstroi spokesman said said.

Construction of the Vostochny space launch center in the Amur region began in 2012. It occupies an area of about 700 sq km.

It is destined to become the first national facility for civilian space launches, assuring Russia's full-scale access to space and reducing the dependence of the Russian space industry on the historic Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

The first liftoff from Vostochny was initially scheduled for December 25, 2015, but reports said it was rescheduled to sometime in 2016.

[Source: Itar Tass, Blagoveshchensk, 02Jan16]

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