Rehearsals in Bolshoi Theatre`s main building to begin next summer.

MOSCOW, December 4 (Itar-Tass) -- Rehearsals in the main building of
Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre will begin in the summer of 2011, the director of
public relations at the Summa Capital investment group - the general
contractor of the theater's upgrade project, Mikhail Sidorov, told the
media this week.
"By next summer we need to complete all the major work inside the main
building, and the Bolshoi company will be able to move there and start
rehearsals," he said.
From that moment on the work will be carried out only in the new
underground section, which will house a hall for concerts and rehearsals.
"This is a unique technical structure, which requires very high
accuracy. The installation of equipment, which began recently, will end in
October," said Sidorov. "The transformer hall is built on the same
principle as halls on the Pacific liners, and it can take any shape."
"For example, if you need additional space, part of the floor can be
raised, which significantly increases the size of the foyer," said Sidorov.
The Bolshoi Theatre will re-open to visitors in November 2011 with a
special concert marking the end of restoration work, which began in 2005.

.Int'l festival to mark 50th anniversary of first manned space flight
Mar 2011.

MOSCOW, December 4 (Itar-Tass) -- The international science festival
Starmus, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight into space,
will be held on the Canary Islands in March 2011. The purpose of this
event is to draw world attention to the first manned space flight, and to
the very personality of Yuri Gagarin, the festival's organizer, professor
of the European Center for Astrophysics, Garik Israelian told reporters
this week.
"In the West, the personality of Gagarin is poorly known, and he is
far inferior in terms of popularity to Neil Armstrong," said Israelian.
"The anniversary of Gagarin's flight within the framework of the Starmus
festival will marked at a special conference entitled "Off We Go! 50 Years
in Space." Close friends and prominent astronauts will remember Yuri
Gagarin. There will be a display of documents from Soviet archives, as
well as showings of documentaries about the man.
Participating in the Starmus festival will be Soviet and Russian
cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Valentina Tereshkova, Sergei Krikalev, and
Gennady Padalka, as well as NASA astronauts Bill Anders, Russell
Schweickart and others. This event will also bring together Nobel
laureates, prominent scientists and experts in the field of astronomy and
astrophysics. The festival will include a roundtable discussion titled The
108 Minutes. It will last as long as the first manned space flight.
The Tenirefe Island was chosen to host the festival, since there is
the world's largest observatory in the Canary Islands, and the sky is
clear and cloudless most of the time. The festival Starmus will last from
March 21 to March 26, 2011.

.Electro-L sat to monitor climate in entire Asian part of Russia.

MOSCOW, December 4 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's first domestic
geostationary meteorological satellite, Elektro-L, will be launched in
late December. It will allow experts to observe climate change in the
entire Asian territory of Russia, the director of the hydrometeorological
center, Roman Vilfand, told a news conference earlier this week.
The satellite will be above the point of intersection of the equator
and the 76th meridian in the Indian Ocean. The whole territory of the
country extending to the 60th parallel North will be available for
observation.
After some time, another satellite will be put in orbit to monitor the
European territory and the Urals, said Vilfand. He believes that
"satellite information is most useful for predicting the weather."
"Numerical values are used as initial data for the prediction of the
weather," he added.
Electro-L - is a hydrometeorological spacecraft designed to monitor
Russian territory. It will be positioned at a point of 76 degrees east
longitude over the Indian Ocean. It will provide multi-spectral imagery of
the Earth's disk in the visible and infrared ranges (resolution of 1 km
and 4 km respectively). Images will be taken every 30 minutes. In the case
of observation of natural phenomena the filming intervals (on command from
the Earth) can be reduced to 10-15 minutes. In addition, Electro-L will be
expected to perform the tasks of obtaining heliogeophysical data, relay
and exchange weather information, as well as receive and relay data from
autonomous platforms, meteorological buoys and signals of the search and
rescue system KOSPAS-SARSAT.
The satellite will also operate under the auspices of the World
Meteorological Organization. It will be part of the system including
satellites of the United States, Europe and Japan.
Launch Electro-L, mounted on the launch vehicle Zenit-2SB, is
scheduled to be put in space from Baikonur on December 25.

-0-str