Russian Launch Vehicles and their Spacecraft: Thoughts & News

In February 2021, the workshops of the Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, part of the Roscosmos State Corporation) completed welding of the first stage oxidizer forecastle assembly for the experimental installation of the promising Soyuz-5 launch vehicle.

Structurally, the forecastle consists of a lower bottom, four cylindrical shells with a diameter of 4 100 mm and a technological shell. This assembly is necessary to confirm the strength characteristics of the lower part of the tank "O". The tests will confirm the characteristics laid down in the design documentation.

At present, the specialists of the testing area of ​​the aggregate-welding-assembly shop are preparing the forecastle for the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle for strength and tightness tests.

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The Soyuz-5 launch vehicle can be operated at different cosmodromes. So far, launches are planned from the complex at Baikonur within the framework of the Russian-Kazakh project "Baiterek". But Soyuz-5 will be able to launch from any cosmodrome - from Vostochny and Sea Launch - provided that an appropriate ground infrastructure is created: a technical position and a launch complex.

The Voronezh rocket engine building center (part of the integrated rocket engine building structure headed by NPO Energomash of the Roscosmos State Corporation) has successfully conducted the first fire test of the standard chamber of the RD-0124MS rocket engine, created at the enterprise for use in the second stage of the promising domestic launch vehicle Soyuz- five".

The chamber is manufactured using units manufactured by the method of new technologies, which open up great opportunities for reducing labor intensity, increasing labor productivity and quality of manufacturing products in rocket engine building. During the test, one turn-on was carried out with a duration of 50 seconds at the rated thrust mode. The test program was completed in full.

The rocket engine RD-0124MS with a thrust in the void of 60 tons runs on the fuel components "liquid oxygen + naphthyl" and is intended for use in the second stage of the Soyuz-5 rocket. It consists of two blocks located on a common frame, and each of the blocks includes two chambers. The engine provides rocking of the chambers in two planes, as well as work when one of the units is turned off, including at a reduced thrust mode.

MOSCOW, March 2 - RIA Novosti. A new look of the Russian super-heavy carrier rocket has been determined, which can be used for flights to the moon, a source in the rocket and space industry told RIA Novosti.

"The launch vehicle <...> is planned to be created according to a batch scheme: six side blocks around the central one - all with an RD-182 engine and an upper stage based on RD-0169," the agency's interlocutor said.

Earlier in the presentation, CEO demonstrated NPO " Energomash " Igor Arbuzov th at the annual meeting of the collective enterprise, was mentioned RD-182 engine for the development of Russia's reusable rocket middle class "Amur-LNG". The video was published on the channel "Roscosmos TV" in YouTube .

As a source explained to RIA Novosti, the Amur-LNG is planning to use a reusable RD-0169 engine with a thrust of 100 tons, and in a super-heavy rocket - a more lifting reusable RD-182 with a thrust of 250 tons.
According to him, the initiative to switch to methane fuel from kerosene-oxygen belongs personally to the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.

In December 2020, Rogozin announced on Facebook that it was decided to revise the project of the Russian super-heavy rocket Yenisei. Instead of current technologies using oxygen-kerosene engines, it will use new technical solutions, which is why Angara missiles will be used in the first Russian manned missions to the Moon until 2032 . Vladimir Putin's decree stipulates that the first super-heavy rocket should be launched in 2028.
Rogozin also reported that the new super-heavy rocket will be reusable - this principle is incorporated in the Amur-LNG project.
In January 2021, the Space Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences recommended postponing the creation of a super-heavy rocket, since it is necessary to use breakthrough, promising and economically viable technologies.

In February, Dmitry Baranov, general director of the Progress Rocket and Space Center (a Roscosmos enterprise), said that the technical design of the Yenisei rocket had been suspended due to the possibility of a correction of its appearance, which would be determined by the middle of the year.