Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

PapaDragon wrote:

limb wrote:

Even most optimistic estimates for lunar mission with Angara-A5 say that it would require 3 separate launches with orbital assembly, it's a clustefuck

How is that bad?

Because it triples number of things that can go wrong, makes planning of any mission a colossal pain in the ass, eats too much time and if you thing that is bad just imagine how hard anything beyond moon would be

It's halfassed solution born of technical shortcomings

As opposed to using a supercomplicated rube goldberg SHLV that takes many more decades to test and manufacture, which needs billions more in infrastructure upgrades? Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket...

Manned missions or lunar colonization won't be able to happen with just a single spacecraft launched from earth. Stuff like fuel reserves, redundancies, research equipment, colonization equipment, landing craft, etc will take far more  weight than can be launched with one single rocket. Face it, orbital assembly is inevitable, with current physical constraints and the fact that you think its "half-assed" shows how short sighted you are.

limb wrote:Manned missions or lunar colonization won't be able to happen with just a single spacecraft launched from earth. Stuff like fuel reserves, redundancies, research equipment, colonization equipment, landing craft, etc will take far more  weight than can be launched with one single rocket. Face it, orbital assembly is inevitable, with current physical constraints and the fact that you think its "half-assed" shows how short sighted you are.

Bingo, give that man a cigar.

I don't know what the first craft to carry humans to Mars will look like, but I know that it won't be a single-stack monolithic vehicle launched with a crew atop a gangantuan Saturn-V-on-steroids. It will be orbitally assembled with the crew only coming aboard when it is complete and fully fuelled & provisioned, and will absolutely require multiple launches.

In this context, using multiple Angaras for a manned lunar landing mission is really no different.

Which would you prefer for deep space mission:

a) Small spacecraft made up of large number of small components

b) Large spacecraft made up of small number of large components

Y'all should stop trying to suck Trampoline Man's dick, he can't tell what you are trying to do and even if he did he wouldn't say "thank you" for doing it

Big_Gazza wrote:

limb wrote:Manned missions or lunar colonization won't be able to happen with just a single spacecraft launched from earth. Stuff like fuel reserves, redundancies, research equipment, colonization equipment, landing craft, etc will take far more  weight than can be launched with one single rocket. Face it, orbital assembly is inevitable, with current physical constraints and the fact that you think its "half-assed" shows how short sighted you are.

Bingo, give that man a cigar.  

I don't know what the first craft to carry humans to Mars will look like, but I know that it won't be a single-stack monolithic vehicle launched with a crew atop a gangantuan Saturn-V-on-steroids. It will be orbitally assembled with the crew only coming aboard when it is complete and fully fuelled & provisioned, and will absolutely require multiple launches.

In this context, using multiple Angaras for a manned lunar landing mission is really no different.

Musk's Starship is a toy prop. Scaling it to the size of a rocket more powerful than Saturn V is absurd. It is also supposed to land vertically
on return. Since this clownery does not have detachable upper stage it will have to go Mars and find fuel to come back to Earth. If not, then
it has to carry it there. Which would require it to be huge. Nothing that Space-X has built approaches huge. Even its largest LEO rocket
uses a cluster of small engines. Something like the F1 or the Shuttle main engine is not on the horizon.

Good riddance. The Yenisei rocket was a monument to waste.

It is not cancelled, it is not urgent so they are delaying it so new technology and materials and likely engines can be further developed to make it more modern and capable.

Angara is scalable... but not set in stone... over time they might develop a new base model with better performance with new fuels and motors they could use as the core and boosters on a new family of rockets.

Angara will not be able to deliver any meaningful payload beyond low Earth orbit so if Russia wants do accomplish anything in space they will need Yenisei

So just as well they have not cancelled Yenisei then...

can't they just develop an upsized Angara like the propsed A7?

They could take the modular design of the Angara rocket and add new larger more powerful rockets that can also be modular for heavier work...

Even most optimistic estimates for lunar mission with Angara-A5 say that it would require 3 separate launches with orbital assembly, it's a clustefuck

Why? The ISS took hundreds of launches to get all its bits up and together and it still has potential for bits to be added to it. Requiring multiple launches is not a problem.

Haven't you heard the term all your eggs in one basket?

As posted by Garry elsewhere, one can go to the Moon and Jupiter by assembling a spacecraft from modules in LEO.
The A5 can deliver over 25 tons to LEO. So five shots give you a spacecraft with 150 tons. That ain't too shabby.

And an important point... the enormous mass required for a Mars manned mission means assembly in earth orbit will be mandatory... there is no chance in hell that you could build a rocket big enough to launch a craft able to go to mars direct from the surface of the earth to mars and back.

Doing it on a mission to the moon is good practise for something that will become standard procedure...

And we see here the usual peanut gallery Dunning-Kruger effect. Building ginormous rockets to launch spacecraft
on inertial flights to Mars and beyond is obsolete given the development by Russia of viable
nuclear propulsion for interplanetary missions.

And nuclear propulsion in space will dramatically reduce the amount of fuel required for a manned mars mission but you still wont be going in one hop from one rocket... just not going to happen.

Because it triples number of things that can go wrong, makes planning of any mission a colossal pain in the ass, eats too much time and if you thing that is bad just imagine how hard anything beyond moon would be

It's halfassed solution born of technical shortcomings

The only critical launches are the last ones with the people... any other could be relaunched with backups for the material lost...

All this cancellations of heavy payload carriers is consequence of the biggest traitor of all ,
vladimir putin , that cut in half the russian space budget a couple years ago and remains that way.

Nothing has been cancelled. He says that it is delayed... he seems to think new technologies are maturing that could change its design significantly enough to make it worth delaying its design and production... perhaps he has better access to information about new propulsion and materials than we have... difficult to believe I know...

Manned missions or lunar colonization won't be able to happen with just a single spacecraft launched from earth.

Ideally you would want to send resources and materials to the location before you send people so you could perhaps have a solid base for them to live in when they get there and perhaps enough fuel to get home if they need to come right back (doubtful I know... there are lots of situations where even having the fuel to get back is not good enough anyway..)

Which would you prefer for deep space mission:

a) Small spacecraft made up of large number of small components

b) Large spacecraft made up of small number of large components

Well for Earth Orbit Space Station they went for a... if you take a big one piece space ship to Mars then you are going to have to take that big heavy ship all the way there and bring it all the way back... that is going to burn a lot of extra fuel to allow you to be a bigger target for micro meteorites and radiation...

Big_Gazza wrote:

lancelot wrote:...and the Angara pad is nowhere in sight.

Not sure if you just plain stupid or if you are a deliberate liar     I suppose the pictures and images of the Angara pad build progress are all Kremlin propaganda?
...
BTW they built a Soyuz pad at Vostochny because despite its long legacy it is still a perfectly fit-for-purpose launcher which most nations around the globe would be happy to operate.  They didn't build an Angara pad because when they broke ground back in 2011 the Angara hadn't even flown yet.  They needed a national civilian launch fcaility to supercede Baikonour, so what pad should they have built?  Hypergolic Proton?  Ukropistani Zenit?  
...

I know they are building an Angara pad at Vostochny but it isn't built yet like I said it wasn't.
If it was built and operating then why launch Angara from Plesetsk?

The Soyuz pad at Vostochny has launched how many Soyuz rockets? You could count them with a single hand.
In the same time period there were many times more Soyuz launches made from Baikonur. Kourou has more launches than Vostochny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz-2#List_of_launches

In my opinion Soyuz should have been on the way out for satellite launches replaced with Angara and the launch sites at Plesetsk and Baikonur were enough already to cope with the interim.

The Naro-1 rocket was launched in South Korea in 2009. Thus proving the basic Angara URM worked.
So South Korea funded the testing program for Angara URM with three launches of Naro 1-3. In all three launches Angara URM worked flawlessly.
The Angara 1.2 launch in 2014 (5 years later!) mated an already proven first stage with an already proven second stage so the chance of failure was near zero.
It sounds to me like the delays were caused by funding shortfalls. Soyuz had plenty of money from commercial launches and Angara did not because it was new rocket.

This Soyuz pad at Vostochny was simply a waste of money. The original plan was to use an already existing R-7 military pad nearby. Not to build a whole new pad complete with vertical integration building.
Now to justify these investments Soyuz needs to continue. Likely for another decade. Of course someone will also propose upgrades for Soyuz and even new launchers which will require different pads.
Do not believe me? First launcher was named Rus-M now it is Soyuz 5. These rockets aren't necessary at all since Angara can do their job. They just need to man rate Angara and build manned facilities for it.

It would cost 1/20th the cost of having a separate rocket.
Keeping "Soyuz" in the future will mean a whole duplicate launcher infrastructure and production facilities with basically the same capabilities.

Russia cannot afford wastes like that. The Soviet Union had three design bureaus (Korolev, Chelomei, Yangel) competing for space launchers in the 1960s which was one of the causes of the failure of the manned Moon program to begin with. None of them used common infrastructure or engines even.

Proton is a whole different story. Russia had to painstakingly recreate the capabilities to manufacture the hypergolic rocket engines which used to be manufactured in Ukraine.
They spent a fortune changing the whole rocket to get rid of Ukrainian components.

At the same time NPO Energomash developed RD-180 rocket engine for the USA to use in Atlas III rocket.
So basically Uncle Sam funded development of half power version of RD-171 including the production facilities in Russia. The RD-171 was manufactured in Ukraine but designed in Russia.

You would expect Russia to use this RD-180 rocket engine. But no. They developed RD-191 rocket engine for Angara with half the power of RD-180. Plus hypergolic rocket engine for Proton.
Oh and let's not forget several Soyuz rocket engine upgrades including new upper stage for Soyuz with closed cycle engine.
It is like Russia is wealthy! They designed more rocket engines in that time period than USA. I could almost bet the guys who made the hypergolic rocket engines for Proton are now working on Sarmat.

lancelot wrote:Proton is a whole different story. Russia had to painstakingly recreate the capabilities to manufacture the hypergolic rocket engines which used to be manufactured in Ukraine.
They spent a fortune changing the whole rocket to get rid of Ukrainian components.

No. The RD-253/275 family is an Energomash product, and AFAIK have always been manufactured in Russia.

Ukropi engines are invariably either Yuzmash/Yuznoye products or small Russian engines made under license. Ukro domestic engines are mostly either out of production hypergolics for R-36 missiles and Tsyklon launchers, or recent attempts to stay relevent with foreign funding with kerolox engines for ESA's Vega or their pipe-dream Mayak which will never get built.

Proton is a Krunichev product and built in Russia. Any Ukro components were replaced long ago. I'd certainly dispute that they "spent a fortune", and any links providing evidence of the contrary would be welcome.

Genuinely Ukro products like Zenit, Rockot and Dnepr have suffered since the Banderite putsch in 2014, precisely because Russia has not massively invested in reproducing Ukrainian technologies.

lancelot wrote:At the same time NPO Energomash developed RD-180 rocket engine for the USA to use in Atlas III rocket.
So basically Uncle Sam funded development of half power version of RD-171 including the production facilities in Russia. The RD-171 was manufactured in Ukraine but designed in Russia.

RD-180 was designed specifically for US requirements. Russia doesn't use it for its own launchers. Not sure why you think that Uncle Scumbag having to pay for its development is even remotely surprising??

lancelot wrote:You would expect Russia to use this RD-180 rocket engine. But no. They developed RD-191 rocket engine for Angara with half the power of RD-180. Plus hypergolic rocket engine for Proton.

Angara is a modular system that originated from national security requirments and its modules aren't sized for RD-180/170 variants. Its configuration and intended payload capacity for the A-5 variant sets the engine requirements, and they are met with a single combustion chamber. Again, not really sure why this is relevent.

As for Proton, the RD-253 were developed in the USSR when UR-500 was still intended as mega-ICBM and required military storable propellents. Improvements to RD-275/275M was a logical step given its ultimate use as a heavy lifter. Again, its irrevelent to the topic.

lancelot wrote:Oh and let's not forget several Soyuz rocket engine upgrades including new upper stage for Soyuz with closed cycle engine.
It is like Russia is wealthy! They designed more rocket engines in that time period than USA. I could almost bet the guys who made the hypergolic rocket engines for Proton are now working on Sarmat.

Russia is wealthy, but in a real-world sense. They don't control the spigot that floods the world with fiat currency without intrinsic value, but their wealth is real and non-volatile. You can't eat or build a house out of the trillions of virtual USD residing on the magentic media of the globalist banking cartel....

kvs wrote:
Musk's Starship is a toy prop.   Scaling it to the size of a rocket more powerful than Saturn V is absurd.    It is also supposed to land vertically
on return.   Since this clownery does not have detachable upper stage it will have to go Mars and find fuel to come back to Earth.   If not, then
it has to carry it there.  Which would require it to be huge.   Nothing that Space-X has built approaches huge.   Even its largest LEO rocket
uses a cluster of small engines.   Something like the F1 or the Shuttle main engine is not on the horizon.

The elephant in the room here is the potential for military appications. The moon/mars angle is a red herring, just a load of red meat to throw at the media mouth-breathers and his ever-adoring tech-ignorant groupies. He has always been pitching this idea to the US Army that has a raging hard-on for a vehicle that can launch like a rocket and deliver a combat-capable ground force to any point on the planet within an hour. They've been entertaining this fantasy since the 1960s. Its kind of a boots-on-the-ground extension of the Prompt Global Strike.

For "StarShip" to achieve orbit, Musk will need to commit to the so-called "BFR" rocket as a first stage. Its clearly nonsense and isn't going to fly, so why is he building these flying silos? It does make sense however when you realise he is seeking military funding for a weapon-delivery system.

In this case both Musk and the military deciders he is pitching to are congenital idiots.

Big_Gazza wrote:

lancelot wrote:At the same time NPO Energomash developed RD-180 rocket engine for the USA to use in Atlas III rocket.
So basically Uncle Sam funded development of half power version of RD-171 including the production facilities in Russia. The RD-171 was manufactured in Ukraine but designed in Russia.

RD-180 was designed specifically for US requirements.  Russia doesn't use it for its own launchers.  Not sure why you think that Uncle Scumbag having to pay for its development is even remotely surprising??

lancelot wrote:You would expect Russia to use this RD-180 rocket engine. But no. They developed RD-191 rocket engine for Angara with half the power of RD-180. Plus hypergolic rocket engine for Proton.

Angara is a modular system that originated from national security requirments and its modules aren't sized for RD-180/170 variants.  Its configuration and intended payload capacity for the A-5 variant sets the engine requirements, and they are met with a single combustion chamber.  Again, not really sure why this is relevent.

RD-170 (1987): Thrust at the ground 740 tons, in vacuum 806.4 tons. The specific impulse at the earth is 309.5, in a vacuum 337.2. Dry weight 9,500 kg

RD-180 (2000): Thrust at the ground 390.2 tons, in vacuum 423.4 tons. The specific impulse at the earth is 311.9, in a vacuum 338.4.  Dry weight 5,480 kg

RD-191(2010): Thrust at the ground 196 tonnes in vacuum 212,6 tons. The specific impulse at the earth is 311.5, in vacuum 337. Dry weight 2,290 kg

РД-191М(2020): Thrust at the ground 217,4 tons in the vacuum of 234 tons. The specific impulse at the earth 314, in vacuum 338. Dry weight 2,290 kg

So, the 4xRD-191M propulsion system will give the following indicators: Thrust at the ground 869,6 tons in the vacuum of 936 tons. The specific impulse at the earth 314, in vacuum 338. Dry weight 9,160 kg.  Compare these parameters with the RD-170 model of 1987. Are you still not seeing any progress? This is the answer to the question of why Russia designed these engines.

And for those that can't tell. That is some serious improvement to the RD-191 derivative of the RD-170.

The peanut gallery is high on sci-fi and thinks that if the engine does not do FTL then it is irrelevant. The
RD-191M has world leading characteristics for this class of engine.

kvs wrote:And for those that can't tell.   That is some serious improvement to the RD-191 derivative of the RD-170.

The peanut gallery is high on sci-fi and thinks that if the engine does not do FTL then it is irrelevant.    The
RD-191M has world leading characteristics for this class of engine.

.and the USAF doesn't mandate the purchase of RD-180s as an act of charity to Russia. Dunning-Kruger effect is strong with some folk.

Well yeah materials improvements mean they have increased chamber pressure and thus Isp improves with later generation of the engine.
But it is more or less like what I said. RD-180 is half a RD-171 and RD-191 is half a RD-180.

I never said the RD-180 purchase was an act of charity. It was a chance for the USA to import engine technology they did not have for a pittance.
You are the one who's reading things into other people's minds which isn't there to begin with. Projection?

The original was the highest performance LOX/Kerosene engine in the world to begin with.
Only recent SpaceX and Blue Origin LOX/Methane staged combustion engines have anything resembling it in technology.
Plus it is much simpler to solve the problem for Methane than Kerosene since engines can be run fuel rich (given that the chance of polymerization due to long chain hydrocarbons is lower with Methane).

Back to a sci-fi classic: Russian space scientists float idea of using RAILGUNS to launch satellites into orbit:

Russian space scientists have suggested revisiting the idea of non-conventional space launchers – namely, railguns – to launch objects into space, arguing that modern materials and technologies may have made it possible.
The idea was floated by scientists at the leading research institute of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency in a new article published this week. The article explores the use of other space launchers besides chemical rocketry, which has long been the primary method of lifting off our planet.

“In our opinion, it is advisable from time to time to re-evaluate the old ideas of access to near-Earth space from the point of view of modern technological capabilities. One of these ideas is the creation of ground-based systems for dynamic mass acceleration,” the article reads, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

The scientists suggest that, with the availability of modern technologies and materials, construction of electromagnetic motors – that is, railguns, either linear or helical – may now have become possible.

“The ‘space gun’ favorably differs from other methods of non-rocket space launch, as, in principle, it is already feasible at the modern technical level,” the article reads.

In theory, a railgun can propel objects to unlimited speeds, if it is large enough and has an appropriate power supply. Still, the main issue with shooting an object at orbital velocities is to make it sturdy enough to withstand enormous forces and not get destroyed right away. At the same time, the cost of a space launch with such device would be significantly lower than if using chemical rockets, either disposable and re-usable.

The idea of shooting something hard and fast enough to propel it into space has been circulating for at least a century. French novelist Jules Verne was among the first to posit the idea in his 1865 piece ‘From the Earth to the Moon’, which described the idea of constructing an enormous space gun to send people to the Earth’s satellite.

The use of electromagnetic ‘guns’ instead of chemical ones has been described by other novelists too, including Arthur C. Clarke in his 1955 book ‘Earthlight’. The so-called ‘mass driver’ is basically a large railgun capable of accelerating objects to speeds high enough to catapult them into space.

Several attempts to create a prototype ‘space gun’, whether chemical or electromagnetic, have been undertaken before. The joint US-Canadian High Altitude Research Project (HARP), which focused on the ballistics of re-entry vehicles back in the 1960s, had some success. Its 16-inch gun still holds the record for the highest altitude – 180km – reached by a gun-fired projectile.

An early demonstrator of a space railgun, the Mass Driver 1, was built in the 1970s by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers in the US. The device was intended to be placed on the Moon on a proposed lunar base in order to launch spacecraft from there, thereby circumventing the main obstacle such devices face to escape the Earth: its atmosphere.

https://www.rt.com/russia/510058-rail-gun-space-launch/

A Soyuz launch from Vostochny, possibly Russia's last for the year.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/oneweb4.html

Soyuz-2 rocket with OneWeb communication satellites launched from Vostochny

MOSCOW, December 18 - RIA Novosti. The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage and 36 communications satellites of the British company OneWeb was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome . The broadcast is being conducted on the Roscosmos website.
The launch was the first fully commercial launch for Vostochny and the only one for it in 2020. Prior to this, commercial satellites were removed from the cosmodrome as an associated payload with the main Russian vehicles.

The Soyuz-2.1b rocket was launched at 15:26 Moscow time from the 1C site. This is the 16th launch of a Russian space rocket this year, with another planned for December from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana. For Vostochny, this is the sixth launch since 2016

At 15:35 Moscow time, the Fregat upper stage with 36 OneWeb communication satellites separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle on a suborbital trajectory. According to the French company Arianespace, which provides commercial launch services using Soyuz rockets, the further launching of satellites into a target circular orbit with an altitude of 450 kilometers will be carried out by two starts of the Fregat propulsion engine.

The separation of satellites from the upper stage should take place in nine stages in groups of four, in the period from 16:44 to 19:18 Moscow time. At 20:16 Moscow time, the Fregat is expected to be de-orbited.

https://ria.ru/20201218/vostochnyy-1589916801.html

The contract for the Nuklon has been signed on December 10th between Roscosmos and Arsenal. The prototype design
is it be completed by 2024 and actual flight tests to be started in 2030. The initial sum of the contract is for 4.2 billion
rubles.

Ostashko points out in the video that the difference between Russia and the US is that Russians don't hype projects from
the moment of their conception and only announce them when they are near the stage of actual development. The
Nuklon project is not some cartoon like the 5th column and its western sponsors love to believe.

Also, the schedule for this project is not excessively long. Ten years for a totally new design is reasonable. And yes,
this is much like the US Moon project in its level. The engineering of the Saturn V and the moon lander and orbiter
is not vastly more complex than this nuclear tug.

Soyuz-2 launch from Vostochniy

And another good news from our engine builders: Energomash today conducted the first full-size fire test of the world's most powerful liquid-propellant rocket engine, the RD-171MV. all parameters are normal.
The engine will be used on the latest Soyuz-5 launch vehicle.
https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1339968380850331655

kvs wrote:

The contract for the Nuklon has been signed on December 10th between Roscosmos and Arsenal.  The prototype design
is it be completed by 2024 and actual flight tests to be started in 2030.   The initial sum of the contract is for 4.2 billion
rubles.  

Ostashko points out in the video that the difference between Russia and the US is that Russians don't hype projects from
the moment of their conception and only announce them when they are near the stage of actual development.   The
Nuklon project is not some cartoon like the 5th column and its western sponsors love to believe.

Also, the schedule for this project is not excessively long.  Ten years for a totally new design is reasonable.  And yes,
this is much like the US Moon project in its level.   The engineering of the Saturn V and the moon lander and orbiter
is not vastly more complex than this nuclear tug.

Oh, my God, I just read the Terms of Reference for the creation of the "Nuklon". This thing will have a mass of 55 tons in an orbit of 900 kilometers. Data from an open source.

kvs wrote:The contract for the Nuklon has been signed on December 10th between Roscosmos and Arsenal.  The prototype design
is it be completed by 2024 and actual flight tests to be started in 2030.   The initial sum of the contract is for 4.2 billion
rubles.  

What I'd like to know is what is the relationship between Nuklon and the vehicle that Arsenal is building? Is the Arsenal vehicle a sub-scale prototype of Nuklon or a different design (ie a general technology demonstrator or a hardware certification mission for sub-scale versions of intended Nuklon components)?

The vid discusses the Arsenal but I don't speak or read Russian...  

My hope is that the Arsenal vehicle we have seen in assembly is actual flight hardware that will see a launch in a few years. Am I being over-optimistic?

The post by Scorpius implies that a larger version will be tested in 2030. So they are probably going to save money by
not developing a smaller test variant. I do not get any useful information about what will be built from any of the sources
at present.