Russia earmarks 800 million dollars for new spaceport: Putin

"The government has made a decision to earmark 24.7 billion rubles (809 million dollars, 623 millon euro) over the next three years for the start of the full-blown construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome," Putin said in televised remarks at a government meeting.

Russia rents its main Soviet-era spaceport Baikonur from neighbouring Kazakhstan. It has said it wants to build a new one near the town of Uglegorsk in the Far Eastern Amur region and it should come online by 2015.

"I very much expect that Vostochny will become the first national cosmodrome for civilian use and guarantee Russia complete independence of space activities," Putin said at the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, the country's main maker of spacecraft.

"It is important that the cosmodrome will effectively ensure the operation of all promising space projects," including planned interplanetary flights, Putin said.

All in all, Russia will put aside nearly 100 billion rubles for its space industry, including the development of GLONASS, its answer to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), this year, Putin said.