Russia will finalize in August 2010 the...

A family of four Rus-M booster rockets with a capacity of 16 to 60 metric tons could compete with another Russian booster rocket, Angara, that has yet to be tested, and is a potential rival to France"s Ariane 5 launch systems and the U.S. crew launch vehicle Ares I.

Russia is planning to test launch the new rocket in 2015, and send manned spacecraft with crews of up to six people into low earth orbits and up to four cosmonauts at a time on Lunar missions from 2018.

Energia has already received 600 million rubles ($19.9 mln at the current exchange rate) of budget funds for the Rus-M project. However, experts doubt if an appropriate launch pad would be built at Vostochny by 2015.

MOSCOW, January 26 (RIA Novosti)