Russian Launch Vehicles and their Spacecraft: Thoughts & News

Big_Gazza wrote:

The question is whether Russia has any decommissioned RS-36 silos that can be restored.

Big_Gazza wrote:There are currently 46x R-36 in service, all based in silos in either Yasny or Uzhur.  The stated number of RS-28 Sarmat allows a one-to-one replacement.

The question is whether Russia has any decommissioned RS-36 silos that can be restored. IIRC at the peak of deployment in the late 80s, the USSR had ~308 R-36 in service, but had destroyed the surplus silos as missiles were withdrawn under START limitations.  Have any silos been mothballed rather than blown up?

New record holder

One of the main links in the holding of rocket engine building is the Voronezh Design Bureau of Chemical Automation (KBKhA). Recently, fire tests of the latest RD-0124MS engine for the second stage of the promising Soyuz-5 launch vehicle were carried out there.

KBKhA has been engaged in medium-thrust oxygen-kerosene engines since the late 1950s, when for OKB-1 S.P. Korolev, power plants for the third stages of space carriers were created on the basis of the famous R-7 intercontinental rocket. Today RD-0124MS is the most modern example of the Voronezh school.

For the first time in the practice of the enterprise, the engine is composed of two independent blocks. Each block has two chambers and is equipped with a turbopump unit, booster pumps, a gas generator and automation units. The blocks are placed on a common frame and are protected from nozzle jet radiation by a bottom screen. Thrust vector control - by swinging each chamber in two mutually perpendicular planes. Independent modes of operation of the blocks allow you to change the thrust in a wide range - from 30 to 100% of the nominal value, which is 60 tons.

According to the representative of the enterprise, “the prototypes of the engine are RD-0124 and RD-0124A developed and manufactured by KBKhA, they are operated as part of the carriers of the Soyuz-2 and Angara families. At the same time, the RD-0124MS surpasses the prototypes in terms of the most important parameter of efficiency - the specific thrust impulse. And since the predecessors had a record figure (359 units) among all oxygen-kerosene engines in the world, the RD-0124MS will become a new record holder.”



Working off
Work on the engine began in 2017. The preliminary design was defended in 2018, and the development contract was signed in December 2018. Design documentation for the newly developed engine units (energy chamber installations) and a model for dynamic testing of the launch vehicle unit were released by the summer of 2021. The newly developed engine units were manufactured and tested under offline testing programs.

Programs and methods for ground experimental testing of the engine have been created. Preparation of production has been carried out, hundreds of items of technological equipment have been developed and manufactured.

On two stands, fire tests of installations and the engine are carried out. Seven firings of a single-chamber installation for testing the camera have already been completed; a series of tests is planned to be completed before the end of the year. Two fire tests of a two-chamber block were carried out, and for the first time a four-chamber engine was tested on fire. KBHA is assembling a product with full-size nozzles, which is planned to be tested before the end of 2022.

A comprehensive program of experimental testing includes a full scope of testing of finishing motors at the enterprise's stands, including tests for vibration resistance, storage, resistance to lightning and electrostatic discharges, and electromagnetic compatibility. Then interdepartmental tests will follow, confirming the compliance of the characteristics with the terms of reference, as well as the completeness and degree of development of the set of design documentation. Next, a transition to mass production is envisaged.

It is planned to manufacture three versions of RD-0124MS: for finishing bench tests, for cold and fire bench tests as part of a stage, for flight tests as part of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle.


Opportunities and prospects
Currently, KBKhA is involved in launching all operated domestic space launch vehicles and is working in a number of areas. In addition to RD-0124MS, KBKhA develops oxygen-hydrogen and oxygen-methane engines for promising domestic rocket and space systems.

As part of the integrated structure of rocket engine building under the auspices of NPO Energomash named after Academician V.P. The Glushko-Voronezh enterprise received additional development opportunities in the main area. Competence centers for foundry and tool production, specialized production of titanium spherical balloons and rocket engine chambers have been formed on the basis of KBKhA.

Under the current tasks and future needs of the enterprise, new machines and equipment are purchased, test benches are modernized. At the same time, KBKhA is implementing a large-scale project for the technical re-equipment of production to increase output and sales of products as part of diversification.

Roscosmos and S7 are discussing the possibility of transferring Sea Launch to the state

ST. PETERSBURG, December 1. /TASS/. Roskosmos and the S7 company are discussing the possibility of transferring the Sea Launch floating space center to the state. This was announced to TASS on Thursday by the CEO of S7 Space Transport Systems (S7 subsidiary) Yevgeny Yelin during the Russian Industrialist international forum-exhibition.

"Plans for the transfer of Sea Launch to the state are being discussed. The technical condition of the cosmodrome is absolutely normal. We service it in accordance with the rules that have been established. In fact, these are not unfounded words. Every month another commission arrives and there are no complaints about the technical condition ", he noted.

The Sea Launch Cosmodrome consists of the Odyssey launch floating platform and the command vessel. The program operated until 2014 - 32 launches of the Zenith rocket were carried out from a platform based off the coast of the United States. In 2014, the launch activities of Sea Launch were suspended, and in September 2016, the S7 group of companies became the owner of the rocket and space complex.

In the spring of 2020, the command ship and platform crossed from the coast of the United States and moored at the berth of the Slavyansk Shipyard in Primorye. At the end of September last year, Rogozin announced that the fate of the Sea Launch floating launch site should be finally determined in the near future.

On December 22, 2022, the oxidizer tank (tank O) of the bench block of the first stage of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle being created was sent from JSC RCC Progress to JSC TsNIIMash for dynamic (vibration strength) tests.

Conducting vibration-strength tests of the Soyuz-5 first-stage oxidizer tank is one of the stages of ground experimental testing and, at the same time, a significant step in the production of a new generation launch vehicle for Progress RCC JSC. In 2021-2022 Specialists of JSC "RCC" Progress "on the basis of the test center of the RCC" Progress "successfully carried out static tests of a prototype of the oxidizer tank to destruction, which confirmed the inherent strength characteristics of the product intended for fire bench tests. Also, the specialists of the enterprise carried out tests of the body of the tank "O" to confirm the strength of the structure in case of transportation by road.

The Soyuz-5 medium-class two-stage launch vehicle is being developed to ensure launches of automatic spacecraft into sun-synchronous, highly elliptical, geotransfer and geostationary orbits, including using upper stages. As part of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle, new engines will be used. The RD-171MV first-stage propulsion engine developed by NPO Energomash JSC and the RD-0124MS second-stage engine developed by KBKhA JSC in Voronezh provide the specified characteristics on oxygen-naphthyl fuel pair. Launches of the new launch vehicle are planned from the Baikonur Cosmodrome as part of the Russian-Kazakhstan Baiterek project.