Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #1

Rusty rails?

Railway tracks can be rather more heavily rusted than those in the above photo and they can still perform their role... are you suggesting money should be wasted on painting the rail tracks every week? What a waste of time and money.

The conditions in Russia can be quite harsh with temperature extremes of hot and cold... did you click on the link provided?

The photos of the facilities at Plesetsk appear very impressive to me... shiny floors, painted clean tidy enormous buildings, painted exterior gantries. The large flat area near the launch pad looks a bit rusty, but I doubt that would actually be much of a problem.

And Plesetsk is an old space port from Soviet times... it is not the new space port being built within Russia.



I can see what you mean however... what a mess... crap on the floor, rust everywhere, holes in walls and the roof and the floor.... or not.

Russian Space Agency to launch Soyuz carrier on Saturday, July 19

Soyuz carrier rocket with four communications satellites blasts off from Kourou
MOSCOW, July 18. /ITAR-TASS/. On Saturday, July 19, at 20:50 GTM Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos will launch the Soyuz 2.1a rocket carrying a biological space complex Foton-M4, which should take off eight minutes after the carrier departs from rocket launch site Baikonur. There will be ‘passengers’ onboard the satellite: five Gecko lizards and several Drosophilae flies, as well as a number of plant seeds and microbes. The satellite will be placed into a 575 kilometers-high orbit for a two-month period and in 6 days the spacecraft will land in Russia’s Orenburg region.

The lizards are perfect for such experiments, as they provide the scientists with the information regarding bones’ demineralization in space, Roscosmos experts told ITAR-TASS. These reptiles stick to any type of surface thanks to the special microscopic hooks on its legs, so the gravity hardly affects them. Moreover, researchers are able to use geckos in space experiments with minimal food and oxygen supplies due to the lizards’ specific metabolism.

Russian Soyuz with European satellites to be launched from Kourou July 10
A number of experiments are to be conducted onboard the satellite, therefore 22 sets of scientific instruments, elaborated by the major Russian scientific research companies and weighting up to 850 kilograms, have been placed there.

Satellites Foton and Foton-M were created by Russian Space Center Progress. The first Foton-type spacecraft was put into orbit in 1985. Modern satellites, of course, differ from the previous ones, which used to be supplied with electricity from chemical sources and their flights lasted no longer than 20 days. The new Foton-M4, weighting 6.8 tonnes, works on solar batteries, which contributes greatly to the satellite’s life cycle. Besides that, now it became possible to change the satellite’s orbit parameters with a special mechanism.

Russia to launch three aerospace labs by 2025
Non-political

The company has scheduled the launch of the first laboratory, X-ray astrophysics observatory Spekrt-RG, for late March 2016.

“The launch has been postponed as we are still waiting for our German partners to send us a telescope for our observatory. We should have received it 37 months ago, but they promised to send it until the middle of 2015”, the CEO said.

The company has not yet set the date for the launch of the two other labs, the ultraviolet telescope Spektr-UV and the radio-telescope Spektr-M (Millimetron), but they surely will reach the orbit until 2025.

Another space observatory Spektr-R, launched by the association three years ago, will remain operational through 2018, chief manager in charge of the observatory’s operation, Alexander Shirshakov, said.

“Solar batteries, which supply Spekt-R with energy, have not experienced any damage and are still up-to-date”, he stressed.

GarryB wrote: it is not the new space port being built within Russia.


I can see what you mean however... what a mess... crap on the floor, rust everywhere, holes in walls and the roof and the floor.... or not.

So the new space port Russia is building is for their next generations Angara and other new rockets?
Can you point me a link of the new facilities?

I was meaning the exteriors facilities , that didn't looked like a place at the level of their new Angara Rockets.
Looks like Old soviet ports. Interiors are fine..

Very simply the Plesetsk space port is a mainly military one for testing and launching military rockets. It is to the north of the country which means it does not benefit from the earths spin as much as launch positions nearer the equator. The space port in Baikanor is now in a foreign country but its closer proximity to the equator means less powerful rockets can achieve better orbits.

the solution to this problem is a new space port in Vostochny which is in the far east and is closer to the equator than Plesetsk.

Vostochny is open empty country where used boosters can be aimed to land in the Pacific ocean, but there are good rail links and lots of electricity produced locally so it is ideal to reduce Russias dependence on Kazakhstan.

Russian Biosatellite Can Operate Autonomously – Roscosmos

MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) – The reception of telemetry data from the Foton-M, a research spacecraft carrying life in space, even after connection with the biosatellite was lost proves that it can operate autonomously for a long time, Roscosmos, Russia’s Federal Space Agency, said in a statement Thursday.

“We process and analyze the telemetry information we receive from the spacecraft [Foton-M] about its systems functioning. The results of analysis show that all support systems of the satellite are operating in a proper way,” the statement on agency’s website reads.

The agency specified that the design and onboard control systems of the Foton-M enable its self-sufficient operation.

The Foton-M was launched on July 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a mission to study the effect of weightlessness on plants and insects, and to conduct experiments on the growth of semiconductor crystals.

Control over Russian biosatellite established   

Specialists have re-established contact with the Photon satellit

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/rd0124.html#0125 - Seems like we have some new third-stage engines in store for Angara and Soyuz-2.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/stk.html#2014 - Russia might be considering a "New Energia", will be intresting to see if it will ever fly.

Stable contact established with satellite -- Roscosmos head

MOSCOW, July 26 (Itar-Tass) - Stable contact was established with the Photon-M satellite, Roscosmos head Oleg Ostapenko told Itar-Tass on Saturday. Contact with the satellite was lost on July 24.

Contact was re-established, and planned work with the satellite was underway, he added.

When asked about causes of the halt, Ostapenko said there were several versions under consideration. It was early to say something definite. It was being analyzed, he said.

Ground control commands do not reach Russian satellite Foton

He assured almost the entire scientific programme of the Photon-M satellite would be carried out. "Under any circumstances, we will surely carry out 90 percent of the planned programme."

The first task was to carry out the planned programme, and the second was to ensure that the capsule would land safely, he said.

Contact was re-established with the Russian scientific satellite at 08:05 Moscow time on Saturday, a source at the Progress company, which designed the satellite, told Itar-Tass.

Commands were sent to the Photon to continue its mission. All its systems were working as normal, the source said.

Earlier on Saturday, the press secretary of the medico-biological research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Oleg Voloshin, told Itar-Tass that contact was re-established with the Photon.

As was reported earlier, its onboard equipment worked as normal and it regularly sent telemetric information. However, control of the satellite from the earth was lost, while it remained in its orbit as planned.

Photon-M No Four was launched on July 19 with five geckos, Drosophila flies, plant seeds and microorganisms on board. It also has 22 sets of scientific equipment developed by leading Russian research organizations.

After the separation from the rocket, all its onboard systems began working. It was switched to orientation to the sun, and some experiments started. However, after its three circuits, contact with the satellite was lost, while its telemetric information was received.

Its bio-capsule is expected to fly for 60 days. During the period, life of the organisms will be supported automatically and a series of experiments will be conducted.

The capsule is planned to land in the Orenburg (southern Ural) region in two months.

LOL looks like NASA may not be able to stop being so Russia-dependent on rockets by '2017' after all...

NASA’s Space Launch System is $US400 million short for completion



\NASA does not have enough money to get its new, $12 billion rocket system off the ground by the end of 2017 as planned, US federal auditors say.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report Wednesday saying NASA’s Space Launch System is at “high risk of missing” its planned December 2017 initial test flight. The post-space shuttle program would build the biggest rockets ever — larger than the Saturn V rockets which sent men to the moon — to send astronauts to asteroids and Mars.
“They can’t meet the date with the money they have,” report author Cristina Chaplain said. She said it wasn’t because the space agency had technical problems with the congressionally required program, but that NASA didn’t get enough money to carry out the massive undertaking.

The GAO report put the current shortfall at $US400 million, but did say NASA was “making solid progress” on the rocket program design.



NASA’s launch system officials told the GAO that there was a 90 per cent chance of not hitting the launch date at this time.
This usually means NASA has to delay its test launch date, get more money or be less ambitious about what it plans to do, said former NASA associate administrator Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University.
NASA is working on the problems GAO highlighted, but delaying launch or diverting money from other programs would harm taxpayers, NASA associate administrator William Gerstenmaier wrote in the agency’s response.
“Welcome to aerospace,” Pace said, pointing out that large space projects often end up as much as 50 per cent over budget. He said that “is why you shouldn’t believe initial cost estimates.”
The space agency has been reluctant to put an overall price tag on the Space Launch System. The GAO report says it will cost $12 billion to get to the first test launch and “potentially billions more to develop increasingly capable vehicles” that could be used for launches to asteroids and Mars.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/nasas-space-launch-system-is-us400-million-short-for-completion/story-fnda1bsz-1226999923983

I don't see anything to LOL about. Did you actually read the report past the headline?

Our space program is as stagnant as the rest of the country. Finally got something new up, after years of delay. At this point we are basically truckers for others into space. Compare the number of actually innovative, long distance exploration missions by NASA and by Roscosmos. Not so LOL anymore, eh? Hell the USSR sent more interesting missions than Russia does today.

Further, SLS is a massive lift rocket. It is not going to be the first or primary way of getting people into orbit for NASA, and has nothing to do with ending their use of Soyuz.

TR1 wrote:I don't see anything to LOL about. Did you actually read the report past the headline?

Our space program is as stagnant as the rest of the country. Finally got something new up, after years of delay. At this point we are basically truckers for others into space. Compare the number of actually innovative, long distance exploration missions by NASA and by Roscosmos. Not so LOL anymore, eh? Hell the USSR sent more interesting missions than Russia does today.

Further, SLS is a massive lift rocket. It is not going to be the first or primary way of getting people into orbit for NASA, and has nothing to do with ending their use of Soyuz.

Do you do anything other than troll bait this forum? BTW Russian space decline = Boris Yeltsin's 90's having all federal-funded programs cut to ribbons with IMF austerity (with the help from your beloved U.S. State Dept.), so what's the excuse for NASA's decline the U.S. didn't have go through anything economically close to that? The fact that NASA has a dependency on Russian rockets is quite astonishing considering what I just mentioned. It's quite relevant as they're gloating claiming that all their dependency and NASA problems would be gone by 2017, we already seeing through that the 2017 mark as not actually being factual when were already seeing problems arise. C'mon TR1, we know your not capable of thinking critically, what's happening to NASA now happened to the Russian space program, IMF backed austerity is destroying NASA like it's destroyed the Russian space agency, I know you were not capable of catching that...NASA budget wasn't even great before (considering the funding they potentially could of have) and now because of the pathetic neo-cons in Congress, the science budget is being thinned out even more. I'm a supporter of NASA and it's a program/field that's grossly under-funded...

Here's Neil De Grasse Tyson on NASA budget:

Nice. You didn't respond to anything I said, because as it is obvious you:
1.) Didn't read the article
2.) Don't know anything about how space projects usually go time and budget wise
3.) Don't know anything about Roscosmos today
4.) Don't have an idea about the specific technical projects in question.

Got it. Carry on with paragraphs of fluff.

TR1 wrote:Nice. You didn't respond to anything I said, because as it is obvious you:
1.) Didn't read the article
2.) Don't know anything about how space projects usually go time and budget wise
3.) Don't know anything about Roscosmos today
4.) Don't have an idea about the specific technical projects in question.

Got it. Carry on with paragraphs of fluff.

Carry on and do not discuss the role of austerity and the role of the IMF destroying science funding, IMF located in Washington, DC is influencing congress to cut the science funding hence the reason why they're $400 million short, it's the same IMF that suggested to Gorbachev and Yeltsin to cut funding for the sciences, again you lack both critical thinking skills as well as the ability to go in-depth in discussion, yet you resort to troll-baiting with erroneous straw-men, fallacious diatribes, flimsy and pathetic false-equivalency arguments if you can call your snide comments 'arguments', all the while posturing with fake moral and intellectual superiority.     

TR1 wrote:I don't see anything to LOL about. Did you actually read the report past the headline?

Our space program is as stagnant as the rest of the country. Finally got something new up, after years of delay. At this point we are basically truckers for others into space. Compare the number of actually innovative, long distance exploration missions by NASA and by Roscosmos. Not so LOL anymore, eh? Hell the USSR sent more interesting missions than Russia does today.

Further, SLS is a massive lift rocket. It is not going to be the first or primary way of getting people into orbit for NASA, and has nothing to do with ending their use of Soyuz.

That may be true, but at least Roscosmos is still putting people to space, and building satellites both private and publicly owned. And are not looking to work with the Muslim world like NASA was geared towards by US Gov. NASA has a lot of abilities and has good funding, but in the end, is short of what is needed. Roscosmos has had plans and even went as far as actually throwing stuff into space to do missions like Mars and what not, but unfortunately, failed due to malfunctions. Which is of course, one of the byproduct of the 90's. Though, hopefully things will change. India has shown they can launch projects without needs of billions. So I think Russia can too. Heck, at least Russia is still the main competitor to NASA when China and India has been pushing tons into its development but is still behind. But of course, nothing like MIR Russia has done. But there are plans with China so hopefully a new MIR will commence.

Baikonur Cosmodrome Could Stop Receiving Financing in 2016 - Reports

MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Ministry of Finance might stop financing Baikonur cosmodrome in 2016, Izvestia newspaper reported Friday citing a source in Roscosmos.

“In previous versions of draft budget for 2016 it was planned to allocate a $705 million (2.5 billion rubles) subsidy for Baikonur maintenance. The money was supposed to be spent on salaries and field maintenance. We asked for more. But when our representative in Ministry of Finance was shown the final draft there was zero,” the official from the Federal Space Agency was quoted as saying.

According to the newspaper, this could mean the whole teams of specialists at Baikonur will be left without financing. The report also said that Ministry of Finance allegedly made such decision due to the construction of the new Vostochniy cosmodrome, which will now receive the money that previously went to Baikonur.

Baikonur, an international spaceport, was built in 1955. Russia leases Baikonur from Kazakhstan for $115 million annually. The current lease contract between the two countries expires in 2050.

Debris of Russian Progress M-23M Drowned in Pacific Ocean

MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) – The unburned in dense atmosphere debris of cargo spacecraft Progress M-23M, which was undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on July 22, fell into the Pacific Ocean, a representative of the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos told RIA Novosti Friday.

“The splashdown of the unburned in dense atmosphere debris of the cargo spacecraft occurred at the estimated time,” the source said.

From July 22 to August 1 an experiment titled “Radar-Progress” connected to the studies by earth-based observatories on the light-reflecting capacity of plasma heterogeneities generated by propulsion systems in the ionosphere, was held on board the Progress.

Russia to Hold First-Ever Cosmonaut Rescue Drills at Sea

MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - Military Air Forces and Air Defense Forces of Russia’s Eastern Military District together with the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, and the Pacific Fleet rescue service are holding Russia’s first joint exercises to rescue cosmonauts at sea, fleet spokesman Captain First Rank Roman Martov said Friday.

“For the first time in recent history, an exercise to find and evacuate cosmonauts at sea after reentry will be held at the Pacific Fleet’s main base on August 2-8,” Martov told journalists.

A number of exercises aimed at working through the actions of the crew of a manned Soyuz-TMA transport spacecraft during parachute descent and landing are scheduled for August, 5.

The at sea part of the training includes the “practical work-through of all complex issues, with the use of maritime aviation, ships and rescue forces of the Pacific Fleet rescue service,” and is to take place in Ussuri Bay on August, 7.

Russian Foton-M satellite to remain on orbit for 2 months

MOSCOW, August 01. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Federal Space Agency decided to leave its scientific satellite Foton-M on the orbit for two month as planned and not to remove it ahead of time, despite the mess that the satellite caused after getting lost in space.

“The satellite is operating normally now, so it will remain on the orbit for two-month period as initially planned”, head of space agency Oleg Ostapenko told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

The fourth scientific satellite Foton-M with lizards, fruit flies, plant seeds and microorganisms aboard was launched on July 19, 2014 and lost connection with the Earth a few hours after the launch, so Russian space experts could not control it and it took seven days to regain connection.

A number of experiments were scheduled onboard the satellite, therefore 22 sets of research equipment was mounted on Foton-M. The experiments should reveal how to sustain human life in a long space trip.

“Without such experiments we are unaware of how to provide oxygen and food for such a long space trip”, head of Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency, Vladimir Uyba, said, stressing that in the future cosmonauts will be sent to Mars and even further into space.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/vostochny2014.html#07

Concrete structure of Soyuz pad nears completion

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In July, construction crews approached the top level of the monumental concrete structure comprising the Soyuz launch complex at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. At the end of the month, the regional government reported that Block A of the launch pad had been completed after pouring 1,700 cubic meters of concrete. At the time, construction teams were yet to top out the second level of Block B. (It was a relatively minor lag behind the previously promised May 15 deadline for this phase of the work.) Also, official Russian TV showed the installation of giant cisterns for kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen and nitrogen gas at a nearly completed storage facility of the launch complex.
The active construction of 12 residential buildings, of a kindergarden, of a boiler facility and of a water treatment plant was also continuing at the future space center. A new concrete-production plant, a power conversion station and a car park were reported approaching completion. During the summer, regular workforce was reinforced with 400 members of 22 student teams assembled at the site from 15 regions of the Russia, the local government said.
The head of the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, Oleg Ostapenko visited Vostochny on July 30. Among other construction sites, Ostapenko inspected a future ground control station of the space center, Roskosmos said. Ostapenko also dropped by at one of the trailers housing construction workers. In front of an official camera, one student worker repeatedly answered "yes" to Ostapenko's queries whether life and working conditions had been good at the site.
Next day, Ostapenko chaired the first meeting of the newly assembled interagency commission on the Vostochny development. Besides Roskosmos, the commission included representatives of the Emergency Ministry, MChS, Spetsstroi construction organization and Federal Medical Service, FMBA. He was quoted as saying at the opening of the meeting that the construction had been going on "under pressure" to meet the schedule set up by the president and by the Russian government. To save time, officials promised to begin outfitting some of the facilities even before the completion of their construction.
  
They are getting close to finishing!!!  

Old Soviet Cosmos satellite to go off orbit on August 2

MOSCOW, August 01. /ITAR-TASS/. Cosmos-903, an old Soviet satellite, is to go off orbit and be burnt in the upper atmosphere on August 2, a spokesman for Russia’s aerospace defence forces told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“Specialists of the aerospace defence forces are constantly monitoring changes in parameters of orbiting fragments of the spacecraft Cosmos-903. As of August 1, it was on orbit with the following parameters: orbit time - 155 minutes, inclination - 62 degrees, apogee altitude - 6,322 kilometres, perigee altitude - 92 kilometres,” said Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin.

Russian scientists hope to continue Martian mission modeling experiments

MOSCOW, August 03 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems hopes to continue modelling a manned mission to Mars in the years to come, Institute Director Igor Ushakov said on Saturday.

“The federal space programme for 2016-2025 has not been approved yet, but we hope that it will envisage further experimenting. We would like to study many issues during such experiments,” he said at the 40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly underway in Moscow on August 2-10, referring to a possible continuation of the Mars-500 Programme.

His deputy, Oleg Orlov, said a biosatellite, Bion-M j 2, would be orbited as part of the programme in 2019. It will be followed by another one, Bion-M j 3, approximately in 2022.

Also, Vozvrat-MKA spacecraft will be launched in 2021 and 2025.

Russia has come closer than other countries to launching sustainable long-term manned space missions, Vladimir Uiba, head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency told ITAR-TASS this week.

“We expect positive results from experiments. Then we will be able to say whether or not we know how to provide for the vital life sustenance of cosmonauts during a long mission,” he said.

He said man would fly to Mars and beyond in the future, but “without experiments like those we are doing on Foton [satellite] no one can say how to provide sufficient supply of oxygen, food and so on for such a long flight”.

Uiba said no one in the world had such information, “neither the United States no China”. “We have come closer to the answer as our Fotons allow us to model life-support systems for people,” he said.

Russia to create chief space designers’ council for lower foreign supply dependency

“So, we will provide our country with high-quality television, qualitative communication means, cartography," Deputy Prime Minister says

ZHELEZNOGORSK (Krasnoyarsk territory), August 05. /ITAR-TASS/. A council of spacecraft general designers will be set up in Russia.

The specific decision was taken at a meeting of chief executives of enterprises operating in the space industry in the city of Zheleznogorsk, central Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk territory. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin chaired the meeting.

The council should be created so that each designer “will not invent his own high-tech space ‘bicycle’, will be able to talk to each other and to find universal solutions in their work.”

“Say, spacecrafts should not number one thousand, but should be tenfold fewer. Thanks to this we will reduce our dependency from foreign supplies of high-quality micro-and radio-electronics,” Rogozin added.

He recalled that the situation in the world had changed and sanctions were imposed on Russia, “stripping the space industry of the possibility to bring domestic and foreign payloads on the orbit.” “This means that now we should produce spacecrafts ourselves. Meanwhile, they should be of high quality,” the deputy prime minister said.

“So, we will provide our country with high-quality television, qualitative communication means, cartography, Earth remote sensing, geological prospecting from the outer space and will resolve military tasks. In general, we need to restore “hearing, vision and smell” of our army, aerospace defence and strategic nuclear forces,” Rogozin noted.

Russia should build up production of military satellites and telecommunications satellites, making an emphasis on import substitution, the deputy premier said earlier in the day. Russia should become “a highly skilled horse rider” on the market of space services, but this market should be primarily created in the homeland, Rogozin added.

Russia’s Soyuz rocket with European satellites to be launched from Kourou Aug 21

Roscosmos suggests starting the creation of moon base elements and exploration robots

MOSCOW, August 11, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's moon exploration plans have found reflection in a draft Federal Space Programme (FSP) for a 2016-2025 period, worked by the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The draft FSP envisions that already in 2018 work will be started to develop the elements of a moon base and special-purpose technology that will be required for building it, the newspaper Izvestia writes referring to the document a copy of which it has available.

Russia to focus on Moon, Mars exploration, repeat Phobos-Grunt mission

Izvestia quotes the draft Programme as pointing out that "The 'Manned Flights' avenue of research includes projects to bring into being an on-ground development complex as the prototype of a first-phase moon base consisting of four modules (habitation, laboratory, power, and modernised node) for comprehensive linkage and verification of the adopted architectural and technical solutions".

The draft Programme also presupposes that a mobile manipulator crane, a grader, an excavator, a cablelayer, and a mobile robot for lunar surface exploration will be created and tested for building a luna base.

According to the newspaper's data, the financing of a number of research and experimental design operations at the moon base is supposed to be started in 2018. In all, Roscosmos requests the allocation of 10.37 billion roubles within a period till 2025 inclusive for the implementation of the works.

Roscosmos staff prefer not to comment on the FSP, the paper specifies.

It was Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin who stated in April of the current year that Russia, in prospect, intends to start the colonization of the Moon.

A source at the United Space Rocket Corporation told Izvestia that it is too early now to comment on detailed contents of the draft FSP, for the document is yet to be edited.