There will be a manned spacecraft launch in early April. The Soyuz TMA-18 will take off from the Baikonur on April 2. Baikonur, March 1 (Interfax-AVN) - Six to eight rockets will be launched from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan this spring, a spaceport source told Interfax.

A Proton-M rocket carrying three Glonass-M satellites will take off on March 2. There will be another Proton-M launch on March 20. That rocket will put into orbit the Echostar 14 telecom satellite.

"There will be a manned spacecraft launch in early April. The Soyuz TMA-18 will take off from the Baikonur on April 2," the source said.

The Progress M-05M cargo ship will blast off on April 28. The two aforesaid spacecraft will be launched by Soyuz FG and Soyuz U rockets.

There will be Proton-M commercial launches with the U.S. AMS-4R (SES-1) satellite in April and the Arabsat-5B telecom satellite in May.

Cosmotrans will make two commercial launches of Dnepr rockets (converted from RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles) this spring.

The Dnepr launch of the CryoSat-2 European satellite was delayed from February to late March, and the TanDEM-X German radar satellite would be positioned into orbit in the second half of May.

"In total, Baikonur will provide six launches of Soyuz and Proton rockets in spring. There will be eight launches with Dnepr rockets," the source said.