From June 2011 to December 2012 he was the commander of Plesetsk Cosmodrome and was then appointed as head of the Aerospace Defence Forces, replacing Oleg Ostapenko, who had been promoted to Deputy Defence Minister.
In 2004 he was promoted to be First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Space Forces and after undertaking a PhD in military sciences he became the commander of Plesetsk Cosmodrome in 2007.
Plesetsk is not ideally suited for low inclination or geostationary launches because of its high latitude of 62 degrees north (as compared to the Guiana Space Centre at 5° north or the Kennedy Space Center at around 28° north).
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The existence of Plesetsk Cosmodrome was originally kept secret, but it was discovered by British physics teacher Geoffrey Perry and his students, who carefully analyzed the orbit of the Cosmos 112 satellite in 1966 and deduced it had not been launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Baikonur Cosmodrome | Plesetsk Cosmodrome | Vostochny Cosmodrome | Plesetsk |
For launching the satellites, two options are planned: six satellites simultaneously from Baikonur Cosmodrome on the heavy-lift Proton-M, or two simultaneously from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Soyuz-2 with a Fregat upper stage.