The Space Agency plans to raise $1.6 billion before 2000 from commercial launches of foreign satellites and space crews, the agency's chief said Thursday.


Yury Koptev told Interfax that 12 launches of foreign satellites by a Russian Proton booster over the next six years would earn $1 billion.


More than $500 million is expected in payment for hosting European cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts at the Mir space station. And Russia could get another $100 million leasing Gorizont and Express telecommunication satellites, Koptev said.


Experts put the world's commercial space launch market at $5 billion.


Under a U.S.-Russian agreement, Moscow may launch only 12 satellites before 2000. But space officials have expressed hopes that Moscow's share would be increased soon.


Koptev said Moscow ultimately aimed to remove quotas on commercial space launches or at least to double Russia's share.


In a separate development Thursday, an agreement allowing Russia to lease the Baikonur space launching facility from Kazakhstan for 20 years won final parliamentary approval in the Federation Council.


The pact gives an important boost to Russia's ailing space program, which had relied on Baikonur for all of its manned space missions.


Under the agreement Russia will pay Kazakhstan $115 million per year for lease of the cosmodrome. The 20-year lease can be extended for another 10 years unless either side objects.


Following the Soviet Union's 1991 breakup, Kazakhstan claimed ownership of Baikonur, the U.S.S.R.'s main launching facility, but allowed Russia to continue using the site for manned missions. In the past three years, the facilities have badly deteriorated and many experts have left while discipline and morale have fallen to an all-time low. (Reuters,AP)