MOSCOW (BNS): Russia targets to send its manned space flight in 2017 and is working on a new booster rocket which will launch the spacecraft.

The design of the new booster rocket – Rus-M – will be completed by this August, Sergei Tkachenko of the Samara-based Progress design bureau said on Tuesday.

Russia's Energia space corporation, Progress and the Makeyev missile design facility are designing the rocket which will carry the manned spaceship, RIA Novosti reported.

The Rus-M draft model was first presented at the MAKS air show in Moscow last summer, the report said.

A group of four Rus-M booster rockets having a capacity of 16 to 60 metric tons could compete with another Russian booster rocket, Angara which is scheduled to be tested in 2011.

Russia plans to test the Rus-M rocket system in 2015. Thrust is being given to the vehicle’s safety standards along with its takeoff, non-stop flight and landing capabilities, the report said.

The manned spacecraft will be launched from the newly-constructed Vostochny space centre in the country’s far east in 2017. It will carry up to six astronauts into space.