Russia’s “Cosmos Industrial Amalgamation” (also known as “Kosmos-Air”) has taken delivery of its first Tupolev Tu-204-100 narrowbody (registration RA-64017) following the airplane’s conversion into a customized corporate jet.

Today, Cosmos runs a fleet of a single Antonov An-12 freighter and three Tu-134s configured as corporate jets, as well as its facility with a passenger terminal and an MRO station located inside a common fence with the VIPPORT-run Vnukovo-3 business aviation center. Right now, Airport Consulting Vienna is performing a technical audit in preparation for major reconstruction of the existing airport infrastructure.

Red Wings, then an all-Tupolev airline, previously operated RA-64017 with the factory’s 210-seat standard cabin. Red Wings recently replaced its Tupolevs with Airbus A321ceos. Speaking to journalists at the RUBAE 2019 show in Moscow-Vnukovo airport, Cosmos general director Vladimir Komynin said this acquisition is a first step in the implementation of a long-term development strategy that took a year to prepare, ultimately gaining approval from the company’s owner, the Russian Space Agency (“Roscosmos”).

An important part of the strategy is that Cosmos, along with its primary function of transporting cosmonauts and Roscosmos officials as well as technical and engineering staff from the industrial companies reporting to the agency, will also develop as a general aviation and charter provider to offer on-demand services. RA-64017 has been placed on Cosmos’s air operator certificate with provision for these extended functions, Komynin said.

The new strategy calls for renewing the Cosmos fleet, adding more Tu-204- and Tu-214-series jets and developing a maintenance program, a task to be accomplished in the 2021-2023 time frame. The operator and Tu-204 manufacturer Aviastar-SP in Ulianovsk are in agreement on plans to renovate and convert additional aircraft that may soon go to Cosmos.

The next airplanes to join in are RA-64044 and RA-64045, which were delivered to the sister organization, the flight detachment of the “Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center” based at Chkalovsky airport, east of Moscow, which is shared with the defense ministry.

Both are Tu-204-300s, a smaller 138-seat version in factory layout, previously operated by Vladivostok Avia. Following conversion into VIP jets at Aviastar-SP, these were delivered to the new operator earlier this year under agreement with lessor IFC, which owns the airplanes. Intended primarily to transport cosmonauts between training and medical centers in the European part of Russia to the Vostochny spaceports in Blagoveshensk and Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the Tu-204-300s can also fly nonstop with a Roscosmos team to the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana, South America, from where Russian-made Soyuz launch vehicles have flown since 2011.

While continuing to operate out of Chkalovsky, the two jets will formally be wet-leased to Cosmos. Komynin further said that other Tu-204/214 owners are being approached with a proposal to place their aircraft in management with Cosmos.