Russian and French space officials signed a contract in February to launch four Soyuz-ST booster rockets from the Kourou launch site, on the northern coast of South America, over 10 years to orbit heavy cargoes.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive of Arianespace, the company that markets and operates Europe's launchers, said one launch would cost about $50 million, but an upward revision of the figure was possible.
Considering that there will be four launches beginning in 2009, annual earnings will be $200 million, Le Gall said, adding that the project would pay for itself in seven to nine years.
Russia's Lavochkin design bureau, backed by the Russian Space Agency, is the project's contractor.
Georgy Poleshchuk, the bureau's general director and chief designer, said after the deal was closed in February: "We have a contract for four launches - the Lavochkin bureau will be involved in all of them, using its Fregat upper-stage rocket."
"The first launch will be experimental and semi-commercial, and all the others, commercial," Poleshchuk added.
The 344-million-euro Kourou launch site, located near the equator, will make it possible for Russia's updated Soyuz-ST to orbit heavier cargoes than from the Plesetsk Space Center in northern Russia or the Baikonur launch pad leased by Russia from Kazakhstan.
The project, which is based on a November 2003 agreement between the Russian and French governments, will also allow Russia to substantially expand its commercial use of Soyuz booster rockets on the international market.
