Russia released plans to invest about $800 million (£527m) into a new spaceport in the far eastern part of Siberia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced.

The move is meant to lighten the weight on the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, constructed during the soviet-era.

The new cosmodrome will be built near the town of Uglegorsk in the Far Eastern Amur region, which is close to China.

The intentions is for mostly civilian launches, and it should be operational by 2015.

"The government has made a decision to earmark 24.7 billion rubles ($809m) over the next three years for the start of the full-blown construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome," Mr Putin said.

Vostochny means "eastern" in Russian.

Roscosmos Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's federal space program, said that up to 30,000 specialists would help to build the new space facility.

He added that it will be smaller than the Baikonur, which Russia currently rents from Kazakhstan.

"It will be a least costly and a more compact site," Mr Perminov noted, comparing the new site with Baikonur, which is the largest and oldest space launch facility in the world.

The new port will be about 700 sq km, which will house new launch pads, high-tech residential compounds and research laboratories.

Mr Perminov had mentioned earlier that Russia hoped to launch is first flight from the new port as soon as it was finished in 2015, and planned manned flights in 2018.

Mr Putin pointed out that the new site will be aimed at civilian launches.

"I very much expect that Vostochny will become the first national cosmodrome for civilian purposes and will guarantee Russia full independence of space activities," he said.

"It is important that the cosmodrome effectively ensures the operation of all future space projects," the Russian premier added.

Russia is hoping to build new generations of spacecraft that could also be used for interplanetary flight, like a voyage to Mars.

Engineers are starting to design the Vostochny's launch pads, assembly and testing sites next year. The main construction is scheduled to take place in 2012.

Russia's space agency's first deputy chief Viktor Remishevsky said that the cosmodrom was supposed to ensure stability of the Russian space industry by giving independent access to space.

Putin also encouraged more international co-operation, adding that the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) should be finished by 2015.

"In early 2011, the Russian Soyuz launch vehicle will start operating at the ESA's French Guiana Space Centre in Kourou. Later, the Phobos-Grunt Russian interplanetary spacecraft will put a Chinese space probe in orbit around Mars as part of our programmes to explore deep space," he stated.

With the US shuttle program being phased out by February of next year, the only way to get to the ISS will be by the Soyuz spacecraft.