The new launch facility will be in the extreme eastern Amur region, which borders China, and is expected to be completed by 2015. It will launch both military and civilian rockets.

"The Russian president signed a decree on November 6 to create this new Russian space centre. It will be called Vostochniy," Ivanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency during a visit to the southern city of Samara.

Until now Russia has launched most of its space missions from the Soviet-era Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan -- including the first ever man in space in 1961. It has another space centre in Plesetsk in northwestern Russia.

A third space base, a military launch centre at Svobodniy -- also in the Amur region-- was closed in March.

The new Vostochniy site will be used to launch manned missions from 2018, Ivanov added.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Russian authorities frequently mooted the idea of transferring the launch site for Russia's rockets -- especially its military launches -- back on to Russian soil and away from Kazakhstan.

In 1994 Russia and Kazakhstan signed an accord allowing Moscow to rent the Baikonur site for 115 million dollars (75 million euros) until 2050.

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