Russian Launch Vehicles and their Spacecraft: Thoughts & News

Company that designed Buran shuttle is working on new shuttle-type spacecraft

https://vz.ru/news/2021/3/24/1091014.html

PapaDragon wrote:
Company that designed Buran shuttle is working on new shuttle-type spacecraft

https://vz.ru/news/2021/3/24/1091014.html

rather, it is an analog of the X-37

Scorpius wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
Company that designed Buran shuttle is working on new shuttle-type spacecraft

https://vz.ru/news/2021/3/24/1091014.html

rather, it is an analog of the X-37

Is it?  The article states its a civilian vehicle, not military. Not sure what civilian uses one would find for an X-37 type vehicle.

Displayed at Army 2020 but no pics released....    

Info is too scant, and TBH we've heard all this before, but hopefully its on the level.  Ideally it would be a revision of the Kliper concept as a replacement for the venerable (but now dated) Soyuz crew vehicle.  Too much to hope for?  Maybe, but if you asked me 1 year ago if Russia would have a program for a nuclear-powered interplanetary tug and a mission to Moon/Venus/Jupiter in 2030 I'd probably have rolled my eyes and laughed...

Russia to create eusable cargo spaceship based on the Oryol [spacecraft]

https://tass.com/science/1331627

the Russian orbital station will be surrounded by a "squadron" of satellites


https://tass.ru/kosmos/12250553

MOSCOW, August 30. / TASS /. A "cloud" of satellites will fly around the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, General Designer of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Soloviev announced this in an interview with TASS.

"A squadron of satellites can be created for ROSS. We believe that this will be new in space technology if a" cloud "of spacecraft with their own missions flies at a distance of 100-200 km from the station," Solovyov said.

According to the general designer, ROSS will have a module with an external platform. From it it will be possible to service, refuel, and repair spacecraft. "If something happened to him, you need a small space tug to fly up to him, take him and deliver to the station," he explained.

Cool

RCC "Progress" has prepared a draft design of the first reusable methane rocket in Russia
The project of the Amur-LNG space rocket complex is undergoing examination

https://tass.ru/kosmos/12257953

Big_Gazza wrote:
Info is too scant, and TBH we've heard all this before, but hopefully its on the level.  Ideally it would be a revision of the Kliper concept as a replacement for the venerable (but now dated) Soyuz crew vehicle.  Too much to hope for?  Maybe, but if you asked me 1 year ago if Russia would have a program for a nuclear-powered interplanetary tug and a mission to Moon/Venus/Jupiter in 2030 I'd probably have rolled my eyes and laughed...

I still believe that is Russia works on own shuttle it is going to be first of all orbital bomber :-)

The Soviet Military funded the Buran programme because they thought the US Space Shuttle programme was in fact secretly intended as a nuclear orbital bomber... but they quickly realised it is actually terrible for that job and it would actually be rather more cost effective to leave the 120 ton Buran off the Energyia rocket and put a fairing and 120 tons of nuclear bombs with their own guidance and release mechanisms and use that to attack the US.

There is nothing a Space Shuttle could do that a dozen Satans couldn't do and the Satans would be cheaper and ready for launch 24/7 with no warning.

They only made two Burans because they realised how useless they would be as a bomber and actually as a shuttle.

The US basically used them to recover satellites or repair satellites which would make them useful, and as a space station for a week or two... which was important for the US because they didn't have a real permanent space station at the time.

Many satellites need to be replaced after 3 to about 10 years because batteries and propulsion and other parts fail or wear out so the whole expensive satellite is replaced with a new one.

Having modular systems you could launch a shuttle to go from satellite to satellite and replace batteries and refuel them and they would be good for another 3 to 10 years... if you could support maybe 3 or 4 different satellites for each trip it would actually save money and reduce the debris in orbit and improve satellite performance.

As a way of taking people to and bringing them home from a space station a space shuttle is terrible... the Russian rockets are 10 times cheaper so even if you needed to send up 30 people using Russian rockets for ten launches would cost the same as one launch of a shuttle with 7 crew in it... and it would take five shuttle launches to do that job.

A space shuttle has to be the worst possible name or description of what it is and what it does... but we are stuck with it.

The logic behind the shuttle is the fact, that it can take the cargo out of orbit.
Sure you can put it there more easily and less expensive with rockets, but it does not work the opposite.
SU made two of them only because they ceased to exist. It was the sole reason.
I remind you, that there were 13 or so prototypes at a different stage of complementation.
Not sure now if that includes scaled ones as well, but that was a huge program in movement.

Shuttles are history in both Russia and the USA. Although the USA still has a miniature X 37 that has a military use, it is not known what its purpose is. Satellites will not be pulled out of orbit.

GarryB wrote:

There is nothing a Space Shuttle could do that a dozen Satans couldn't do and the Satans would be cheaper and ready for launch 24/7 with no warning.

stealth shuttle directly above target does what many missiles cannot. FOBS has been forbidden but shuttles are not...

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

GarryB wrote:

There is nothing a Space Shuttle could do that a dozen Satans couldn't do and the Satans would be cheaper and ready for launch 24/7 with no warning.

stealth shuttle directly above target does what many missiles cannot. FOBS has been forbidden but shuttles are not...

The US shuttle was theoretically capable of being an orbital bomber - it was possible to launch from the pad at Vandenburg AFB, deploy weapons, pass over Moscow while the deployed weapons re-entered, and then land in US territory, all in a single orbit. Soviet planners were concerned about capability, not stated intentions. To a (paranoid) militray mind, if the shuttle was for "peaceful" purposes only, why is the USAF building a pad in Vandenburg?

The US military had the capability, so the Soviet military wanted it to, US denials and political showmanship notwithstanding. IMHO they weren't entirely wrong.

Even though the US war planners appear to have a fetish for shuttle bomb delivery platforms, as evidenced by the Prompt Global Strike
program, I find the concept to be rather absurd. What can an ICBM not do that the shuttle can in this regard? All that a shuttle,
even a small one serves as is a bigger and slower target for interception and an enormous launch cost sink.

I think the real concern about shuttles is as satellite interference systems. The US is shitting bricks about the Russian "inspector"
satellite that has been nosing around its precious Keyhole recon satellites. A full sized shuttle could put the whole Keyhole device
in its bay and return it to Earth. This is a dual use civilian function that seems more relevant than bomb delivery.

SU made two of them only because they ceased to exist. It was the sole reason.

The funding was stopped before it ran out... it was sold to the military as a military weapon, and they quickly worked out its military value was zero.

I remind you, that there were 13 or so prototypes at a different stage of complementation.

Prototypes is not serial production and never become serial products.

Not sure now if that includes scaled ones as well, but that was a huge program in movement.

It would, and structural testing ones and ones to test the An-225 flights etc etc.

Satellites will not be pulled out of orbit.

The problem is that most satellites are in totally different orbits so jumping from satellite to satellite is not easy or simple and would consume enormous amounts of fuel so it would not normally be practical... when they have a nuclear powered tug that operates in earth orbit however then they might have something that could tow a shuttle around or a shuttle to meet with it and transfer fuel modules and battery modules to the tug which meets each satellite and replaces those components.... any satellites that need to be returned to earth for fixing could be captured and taken back to the shuttle still in orbit and returned to earth for repair.

For cheap satellites it makes no sense but replacing a camera in a spy satellite that costs 5 billion dollars then it makes good sense.

When there is no shuttle up there or nothing needs to be returned then you could sent up rockets with the fuel and battery modules much cheaper, and during its spare time the tug could go to high earth orbit to those nuclear power supplies that had expired and were ejected to a higher orbit to stop them reentering the atmosphere and spreading radiation.

stealth shuttle directly above target does what many missiles cannot.

Present a sitting target?

If you mean it could just drop bombs from a geostationary orbit... no it could not.... those bombs would need an enormously powerful retro rocket to slow it down.

At geostationary orbit the shuttle would be going around the world at the same speed the world spins so it would appear to hover in one place in the sky.

To do that it would have to be over the equator.

Look at your sky dish... in the northern hemisphere it points south to the equator, here in the southern hemisphere it points north to the equator where the satellite sending its signal is located.

If that satellite was carrying "bombs" and released one there is no drag to slow the bomb down so it would just follow the satellite around the planet in orbit and not fall.

To fall from that orbital position it would need to slow down... which means it would need a powerful rocket motor facing forwards in its orbital travels to lose speed and start to descend to a lower orbit.

That means if you want to bomb a location you can't be directly over it because your bombs will be like parachute retarded bombs so if you release them they will rapidly lose the speed from the aircrafts speed... but the aircrafts speed in this case is keeping it over the target... if the bomb is slowing down it becomes like a star.... a fixed point in the sky while the satellite keeps directly above the bomb will move backwards... if the rocket motor is powerful enough to stop the bombs forward motion completely the bomb will fall vertically downwards and probably burn up on reentry.

If you fire the bomb downwards it will eventually pop back up because its horizontal speed will return it to the orbital altitude it came from.

A shuttle bomber is a stupid idea.

FOBS has been forbidden but shuttles are not...

AFAIK FOBS was part of the ABM treaty which banned anti ICBM and SLBM weapons, but also anti satellite weapons and FOBS.

The ABM treaty is gone so anti satellite weapons and mobile ABM systems are now perfectly legal.... like the S-500... and FOBS are too.

The US military had the capability, so the Soviet military wanted it to, US denials and political showmanship notwithstanding. IMHO they weren't entirely wrong.

Very true, but what they found was that the Energyia rocket they used would actually be more efficient for the job of bombardment, but the time it takes to prep and the costs involved they realised it was not worth all that money... they had simpler cheaper alternatives.

GarryB wrote:

The US military had the capability, so the Soviet military wanted it to, US denials and political showmanship notwithstanding. IMHO they weren't entirely wrong.

Very true, but what they found was that the Energyia rocket they used would actually be more efficient for the job of bombardment, but the time it takes to prep and the costs involved they realised it was not worth all that money... they had simpler cheaper alternatives.

True, but the shuttle, being a vehicle operated by both NASA and the USAF, could conceivably be used to launch a "sneak attack" on the USSR if the US regime so desired.  One scenario would be a publicized military shuttle mission of a "secret" nature (as all military Shuttle flights were) with leaks to the press designed to conceal the true nature.  The mission is launched, but immediate reports are released following take off about "unspecified failures" and an emergency situation rapidly developing.  The shuttle reaches orbit, immediately deploys its re-enter payloads, releases chaff to create multiple radar reflections, while the media is abuzz about "structural failure" and possible "disintegration" in orbit.  The Soviets would eventually figure out the truth of what was happening when their ABM stations picked up the signatures of re-entering warheads as the decoys are burned up, but by then it would be too late to react. Moscow gets smacked hard, and the US immediately ups the ante with an all-out attack to take advantage of the supposedly successful decapitation strike.  

Is such a scenario nothing but fanciful paranoia?  Yes, maybe, but in strictly technical and operational terms, it would feasible.  it is therefore a question not of likelihood but of capability, and it is an adversaries capability not their stated intentions that govern defense planning.

Big_Gazza wrote:The Soviets would eventually figure out the truth of what was happening when their ABM stations picked up the signatures of re-entering warheads as the decoys are burned up, but by then it would be too late to react. Moscow gets smacked hard, and the US immediately ups the ante with an all-out attack to take advantage of the supposedly successful decapitation strike.  

Is such a scenario nothing but fanciful paranoia?  Yes, maybe, but in strictly technical and operational terms, it would feasible.  it is therefore a question not of likelihood but of capability, and it is an adversaries capability not their stated intentions that govern defense planning.

Double use of X-37 makes it so dangerous IMHO. You never know is X-37 over your Kremlin of any AF/command centre base carried a bomb or not...till it dropped.

Its like letting your enemy to keep nukes 180 km in straight line above your most valuable targets.

Big_Gazza wrote:

GarryB wrote:

The US military had the capability, so the Soviet military wanted it to, US denials and political showmanship notwithstanding. IMHO they weren't entirely wrong.

Very true, but what they found was that the Energyia rocket they used would actually be more efficient for the job of bombardment, but the time it takes to prep and the costs involved they realised it was not worth all that money... they had simpler cheaper alternatives.

True, but the shuttle, being a vehicle operated by both NASA and the USAF, could conceivably be used to launch a "sneak attack" on the USSR if the US regime so desired.  One scenario would be a publicized military shuttle mission of a "secret" nature (as all military Shuttle flights were) with leaks to the press designed to conceal the true nature.  The mission is launched, but immediate reports are released following take off about "unspecified failures" and an emergency situation rapidly developing.  The shuttle reaches orbit, immediately deploys its re-enter payloads, releases chaff to create multiple radar reflections, while the media is abuzz about "structural failure" and possible "disintegration" in orbit.  The Soviets would eventually figure out the truth of what was happening when their ABM stations picked up the signatures of re-entering warheads as the decoys are burned up, but by then it would be too late to react. Moscow gets smacked hard, and the US immediately ups the ante with an all-out attack to take advantage of the supposedly successful decapitation strike.  

Is such a scenario nothing but fanciful paranoia?  Yes, maybe, but in strictly technical and operational terms, it would feasible.  it is therefore a question not of likelihood but of capability, and it is an adversaries capability not their stated intentions that govern defense planning.

You beat me to it.   The only value of shuttles as strike platforms is as a sneak attack.    So while the shuttle is launched as a civilian mission in
appearance it is then used to more quickly deliver warheads while orbiting.   However, the Space Shuttle orbit took it towards the south pole in the Eurasian
longitude band.   So the sneak attack would require a different orbit and that the USSR could track this from launch.

Is such a scenario nothing but fanciful paranoia? Yes, maybe, but in strictly technical and operational terms, it would feasible. it is therefore a question not of likelihood but of capability, and it is an adversaries capability not their stated intentions that govern defense planning.

But the fact that they use a manned platform adds nothing to this scenario... they could just as easily be launching a 20 ton Keyhole spy satellite and claim there is a problem and have it release warheads over the Soviet Union with the cost of development of the Shuttle.

The core advantage of the Shuttle is that it can land like a plane and potentially be saving money by being reused.

Double use of X-37 makes it so dangerous IMHO. You never know is X-37 over your Kremlin of any AF/command centre base carried a bomb or not...till it dropped.

Not really... to drop a bomb from orbit is complex and difficult and would have to happen quite a distance away from the target for it to fall into the atmosphere... the shape of which is not consistent which would make the task of precision attacks impossible.

Equally the Kremlin is in Moscow and Moscow has an operational ABM system that would spot a bomb and could work out where it came from... they are tracking things the side of paint chips... it would be immediately obvious where it came from and who did it and who to massacre in response.

You beat me to it. The only value of shuttles as strike platforms is as a sneak attack. So while the shuttle is launched as a civilian mission in
appearance it is then used to more quickly deliver warheads while orbiting.

The Russian military also suspected that is what it was intended primarily for but with experience they realised it was incredibly inefficient way of doing it.

It would be cheaper to simply hide a bomb on an airliner 747 and simply fly to New York or where ever the target was a boom.... book out the entire first class section of a chartered flight to a US city and it would be easy.... you could subsidise the cost of the flight by having paying customers in economy...

Unless there is an ex navy seal who is a cook who happens to be on board and thwarts your entire operation you should be sweet.

GarryB wrote:

Double use of X-37 makes it so dangerous IMHO. You never know is X-37 over your Kremlin of any AF/command centre base carried a bomb or not...till it dropped.

Not really... to drop a bomb from orbit is complex and difficult and would have to happen quite a distance away from the target for it to fall into the atmosphere... the shape of which is not consistent which would make the task of precision attacks impossible.

Equally the Kremlin is in Moscow and Moscow has an operational ABM system that would spot a bomb and could work out where it came from... they are tracking things the side of paint chips... it would be immediately obvious where it came from and who did it and who to massacre in response.

Why does it have to be gravitational bomb not hypersonic warhead? pretty short delivery. It is not about being stealthy during war but before the war starts. What is the time to go 180 km for missile with 5-6kms speed? you need to react calculate trajectory shoot missiles in 25-30 secs? and more less hit.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
Company that designed Buran shuttle is working on new shuttle-type spacecraft

https://vz.ru/news/2021/3/24/1091014.html

rather, it is an analog of the X-37

Is it?  The article states its a civilian vehicle, not military.  Not sure what civilian uses one would find for an X-37 type vehicle.

Displayed at Army 2020 but no pics released...

If it is so diligently kept secret, then this is an important job. Perhaps we will learn about its appearance only after the actual launch. It can be launched from Plesetsk under the next name "Cosmos-xxxx".
By the way, I want to remind you that 3 spacecraft of the BOR series were exhibited at MAKS-2021. Is it a coincidence, or was it a hint for specialists?

There were BOR mockups in previous MAKS exhibitions.

I think there may be a BOR sized test vehicle just like there was for the Buran (BOR-5). So the information about X-37
overlaps this but not the target civilian vehicle which will be much larger.

The X-37 must have some rationale behind it, even as a technology development platform. As with the Buran, Russia
is going to keep up for security reasons.

Why does it have to be gravitational bomb not hypersonic warhead?

It could be an entire Minuteman III missile for all it matters... when the cargo bay doors of the shuttle open and it is released it would gently float away from the the shuttle slowly and gently continuing to circle the earth once every 90 minutes or so in low orbit, or out at geostationary orbit once every 24 hours but also no where near Moscow.

There is no geostationary orbital position you could launch it into that would allow it to hover over Moscow.... geostationary positions are all around the equator.

If you release something from the cargo bay of the shuttle and want it to land on Moscow then good luck.

The earths atmosphere shifts and changes all the time and releasing it from a shuttle travelling at 7-8km/s in low earth orbit means you have to massively decelerate the weapon bomb missile to make it take a lower orbit height... keep doing that and eventually it will start catching the outer edge of the atmosphere which will add drag to the slowing effect... but even then you need more rocket power to slow down and eventually you will start entering much thicker atmosphere and then that will slow you down to the point where you are doing more falling than just slowing down... where you are by this stage is anyones guess, but you can be sure of a couple of things... first of all the Russians track things in space and would have noticed your weapon falling out of the shuttle and heading for Russia, and they will likely launch an ABM missile to intercept it... that is what they are for... and the second thing is that they will know it came from the Space Shuttle so there will be no surprise at all, despite the enormous cost of the space shuttle programme.

The never had hypersonic manouvering warheads.

What is the time to go 180 km for missile with 5-6kms speed? you need to react calculate trajectory shoot missiles in 25-30 secs? and more less hit.

You could never fire it over such a short distance... it would need to be slowed down to enter the earths atmosphere and if you just flew it down into the atmosphere it would either burn up or just pop back up out into orbit again... the bomb or missile would have to be released as it came over the north pole and would be decelerated over an enormous distance...

Honestly if that is the plan it would make more sense just using an existing space launch rocket to say you are launching a new Keyhole satellite with an orbital path that takes it directly over Moscow and detonate an enormous nuclear warhead in space over moscow and hope the EMP takes down their ABM system for an SLBM launch from a SSBN from the Med.... but either way such an EMP blast will tell them an attack is on and all their nukes will get launched any way... no special prize, no cookie.