Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #2

Source: Roscosmos will consider options for the appearance of a rocket to fly to the moon

MOSCOW, December 8 - RIA News . Several variants of the appearance of the Russian super-heavy rocket for flights to the moon will be considered and agreed to be included in the appropriate federal target program at a meeting on Saturday at the leading institute of the rocket and space industry TsNIIMash, two sources in the rocket and space industry told RIA Novosti.
"The meeting will be devoted to a preliminary review of the concept of the Federal Target Program on super heavy rocket on the eve of the Roscosmos scientific and technical council planned for mid-December, at which the draft program will be reviewed," the source said.

According to him, the meeting will be held at TsNIIMash. The leaders of the rocket and space enterprises and the leadership of Roscosmos are invited to it. It is planned that they will discuss and approve several variants of the appearance of a super-heavy rocket, which will later be submitted for approval by the scientific and technical council of the state corporation.
Among these options, said one of the interlocutors, there is also a project for repeating the Soviet Energia rocket with a large central hydrogen fuel tank and a project for a solid-fuel booster rocket (in the Soviet and Russian cosmonautics, solid-propellant space rockets were not used except for military rockets Topol, Yars and Bulava), as well as variants with five and six blocks based on Soyuz-5 missiles.

As reported by the chairman of the scientific and technical council of Roscosmos, Yuri Koptev, it was previously planned that a federal program on super-heavy rocket would be adopted, but then it became clear that there should be a separate space state program.
“The Federal Target Program on super-heavy rocket itself should be submitted to the government by spring,” the source said.
Earlier, Roskosmos told RIA Novosti that the state corporation, among its options, is considering a project of a 103-ton super-heavy launch vehicle with a low near-earth orbit, in which the RD-180 engine sold in the US, surrounded by six Soyuz rocket based units, is installed on the central unit. -5 "with engines RD-171.


The last manned mission "Apollo" launched to the Moon exactly 46 years ago. Prospects for the exploration of the Moon were discussed on the radio Sputnik by leading researcher at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nathan Eismont and aerospace engineer Igor Tirsky.
Last year, the institutes of Roskosmos, Agat Organization and TsNIIMash, calculated that the development of a super-heavy rocket would cost 700 billion rubles. The entire Russian Federal Space Program until 2025 is estimated at about 1.4 trillion rubles.
The first launch of the super heavy rocket is scheduled for 2028. By November 2019, its preliminary design should be prepared.

India, Russia to create working group on cooperation in manned cosmonautics

NEW DELHI, December 7. /TASS/. India and Russia will create a joint working group on cooperation in manned cosmonautics, the press service of the Indian government reported on Friday.

The Indian cabinet of ministers studied the information about the memorandum on cooperation in manned cosmonautics that was earlier signed between India and Russia and approved it. According to the report, the document will consolidate relations between the countries and prompt the development of technologies and advanced systems needed for a manned flight, the press service noted.

ISRO reported that it may need the help of a foreign state in the advanced training of the first national crew.

Venezuela to use Russia's GLONASS satellite navigation system

GarryB wrote:

One more time: Rogozin is braindead retard and so are all of his cultists.

Rogozin is just baiting the western press..

PapaDragon wrote:According to Zak Soyuz-5 will be renamed to "Irtysh" as in river in Siberia

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Source: Roscosmos will consider options for the appearance of a rocket to fly to the moon

.....

Moonbound Cyborgs? Robots to run Russian lunar base

MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. Robots will carry out the bulk of the work on a Russian base, which is set to be built on the surface of the Moon, and people will visit it to set up equipment, Lev Zelyony, Deputy Chairman of the Council on Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the RAS’s Space Research Institute, told TASS.

Under the project, Russia plans to build two strategic observatories on the Moon for radio astronomy studies, cosmic ray research and other tasks, he noted.

"Most operations there will be performed by robots. These observatories should operate in a semi-automatic mode with rare human intervention," the scientist explained.

Zelyony specified that a permanent human presence is simply not needed considering that robots are taking on more functions. That being said it is dangerous for humans to stay for a long time on the Moon because of radiation. "However, human presence on a rotation basis to check out and set up the equipment is very useful," he stressed.

The deputy chairman didn’t elaborate on the timeframe for the construction of the lunar observatories.

Russia’s lunar exploration program
On November 28, the RAS Council held a session with the participation of Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin and RAS President Alexander Sergeyev, where the Moon exploration program had been discussed. A source in the space industry told TASS that day that the RAS Council on Space Research supported projects on establishing an inhabited base and observatories on the Moon.

The lunar exploration program should start with the launch of automated stations, followed by a preliminary Moon orbiting mission with cosmonauts, and finally landing and establishing infrastructure. The launch of the first automatic mission, the Luna-25, is scheduled for 2021.

Zelyony previously said that Russia’s Moon exploration program would be completed by next spring. Neither the timeframe for the implementation of its stages, nor its estimated costs have been announced yet.

GarryB wrote:Nothing at all... he should work on his skills and get to the level of Lavrov though...

Hole wrote:You need both, guys who can talk with a soft voice and full-blown a...holes.

Big_Gazza wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:Now who will start mining (especially USA and soon China too) will claim it is not "all humanity" as now in legal system but theirs own.

Space mining?  What do you think you'll find on an asteroid that deliver a ROI? Iron ore is cheap as chips on earth and plentiful. No need to go to an asteroid and return with iron at $50M per ton... Iridium? yeah, its valuable, but how much do we need, and can we justify spending a fortune to sift the dust on asteroids to find some?

I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I like Sci-Fi as much as the next grown-up geek, but "commercial manned space" will require bucketfuls of cash with no real hope of a profit, (that rules out corporate funding), and would likely require international consortiums of like-minded nation-states. Can you honestly see them spending the money?

Russia and China eye building joint lunar station

MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. Russia is looking at building a lunar station jointly with Chinese partners, CEO of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said.

"China is a serious partner. I don’t rule out that as soon as we agree the outlines of our lunar program with the Americans, it is our manned lunar program, the formation of a research station on Moon’s surface is likely to be carried out with our Chinese partners. They can be equal partners already in the coming years," he told Russia’s TV Channel One.

According to Rogozin, Russia’s first unmanned lunar mission will be launched in 2021.

"We plan to land on Moon. A drill will be activated to collect lunar soil samples that will be taken to Earth,

Future of Moon exploration lies in developing landing modules — Russian space agency

"Participants in the Council session are confident that joint efforts of the scientific community and organizations that conduct space programs, will bring better results. The future of Moon exploration and implementation of the Moon program is in creating new reusable apparatuses, designing Moon landing modules, looking for new types of fuel based on solar and nuclear energy," the press service said.

GarryB wrote: The chances of finding useful expensive material is actually pretty low.

PapaDragon wrote:For bargain price you get access to cis-lunar station and then you are free to build new things of your own.
Speaking of which, NASA agreed to use Russian airlock standard on cis-lunar station. Again, according to Zak.
If someone in Roskosmos would get around to work on PR Zak would be out of business. But it looks like he has the market cornered...

Hole wrote:For the last 40 years NASA planned to reduce the costs but always failed. Like the MIC in Amiland in creating a working weapon system for less than 100 Bill.

The problem with bringing "large" amounts of Gold or other precious metals from asteroids to the earth is that it will make them worth less. More supply, lesser price.

Big_Gazza wrote: How the foxtrot can anyone actually believe that it could be economical to mine these useless mundane rocks and gravitational-bound debris piles?  You'll make more money digging up random stones from your own back yard...  

GarryB wrote:

why you need to being anything back? at first.

The mining industry is real work... no university or government work... if you don't return anything that you can actually sell or use then you just lost a shit load of money and you are fired.