Russia plans to hold two launches from its newest Vostochny space center in the Far East this December, the head of the Roscosmos space corporation told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily.

"Everything goes according to the schedule. We plan Souyz-2 launches in December under the state program to orbit the Canopus-V and the Meteor-M remote sensing satellites," Igor Komarov said in an interview to be published on the Cosmonautics Day, marked on April 12.

Chief engineers of the Vostochny project earlier announced that the space facility was ready for two launches that may take place in late 2017, but gave no further details.

The state corporation expects that up to ten launches, including commercial ones, will be held annually at Vostochny, which is still under construction.