Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

Russia and China enter the lunar race with America
13 February 2021

Russia has announced plans to establish a lunar station with China. Now the parties are working on the technical implementation of the project. The United States has a similar project. Moreover, Washington has advanced quite far in its implementation: the appearance of an American base on the moon is a matter of the near future. How will the development of a natural satellite of the Earth go and why do superpowers need the Moon at all?

Roscosmos has been instructed to sign a memorandum of understanding with China on cooperation in the creation of an International Scientific Lunar Station. The corresponding proposal was agreed by the government with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and other interested executive authorities. Now in Russia the technical documentation of such a lunar base is being worked out . The parties determine possible scientific tasks for the study of the Moon, and also work out the technical implementation of the project.

The director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin previously spoke about Russia's desire to explore the moon together with China. The corresponding agreement was reached with the head of the Chinese National Space Administration Zhang Kejian. In 2017, Roscosmos and the Chinese National Space Administration signed a cooperation program in space for 2018-2022. One of its sections concerns the study of the Moon and deep space.

The USA is also striving to master the Moon. Washington states that space is turning into a potential arena for military operations between America and its opponents. Since joining the presidency of the United States, Joe Biden, the Pentagon expressed their readiness to provide protection for future NASA lunar bases and operations of private companies for the extraction of useful resources. Moreover, observers associate the expansion of the Pentagon's interaction with NASA with the need to counteract "the challenges that Russia and China are throwing to the United States." In response, Rogozin declared the inadmissibility of the militarization of the moon.

The scientific director of the Institute of Space Policy, Ivan Moiseev, stresses that the statements on cooperation between Russia and China in the field of creating an International Scientific Lunar Station remain at the level of declarations. The beginning of the project can be considered its official adoption and the beginning of funding. Moreover, now the Chinese have focused their efforts on creating a near-earth space station, so it will be expensive even for the PRC to conduct two projects in parallel. “But the Chinese say they are increasing the power of their heavy rockets and exploring the moon with spacecraft. This is logical, because the ultimate goal of all these efforts should be the construction of a station on the lunar surface, ”explained Moiseev.

However, in the United States, plans for the construction of a lunar base exist "at the level of practical implementation", for these purposes 40-50 billion dollars have already been spent. “The Americans have almost created the necessary rocket and ship for flights to the moon. It remains to build a take-off and landing complex. NASA ordered the project of such a complex to three firms in order to ultimately choose the best option, ”Moiseev recalled.

However, the expert considers the plans to land on the moon in 2024 voiced even under Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, to be unrealistic, the 28th year seems to be a more reasonable date. Such a landing should be the beginning of the construction of the base. “The fact that the US is spending money on real lunar projects is linked in the general concept of two stations: the orbital Gateway and Artemis Base Camp, which should appear on the southern polis of the lunar surface,” Moiseev pointed out.

Artemis Base Camp will consist of a manned lunar rover to transport astronauts over short distances, an accommodation unit for travel up to 45 days, and a main habitat unit for four people. The lunar rover will not have a closed cockpit, so astronauts will have to wear protective space suits. The base will be equipped with infrastructure for autonomous power supply, communication with the Earth, radiation shielding, a landing pad, and a container for waste disposal.

The Americans' project will require huge costs, but this issue has been resolved. Vladislav Shevchenko, head of the Department of Moon and Planetary Research at the State Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University, recalled that last year NASA signed the Artemis Agreements on space exploration with Australia, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Japan. This agreement was based on the principles of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Among the listed principles, NASA named, in particular, the provisions on the extraction of resources on the Moon and the idea of ​​creating so-called security zones, which should prevent "harmful interference".

This lunar program has three phases. Artemis 1 envisions the unmanned flight of the Orion rocket-mounted Space Launch System (SLS) around the Moon and its return to Earth. Artemis 2 - flyby of a natural satellite of the Earth with a crew on board. The first stage of the program is scheduled for 2021, the second for 2023. The third stage - Artemis 3 - involves the landing of astronauts on the moon in 2024, followed by their sending to Mars in the mid-2030s.

NASA head James Bridenstine expressed hope that Moscow will join the Artemis Agreements. Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin also recently announced that the spirit of international cooperation that characterizes the International Space Station (ISS) should be preserved in Artemis by providing flight capabilities for Russian spacecraft. “The main goal of the Artemis Agreements is to explore useful lunar resources, to extract them,” Shevchenko stressed.

At the same time, the expert called it natural to combine the efforts of Russia and China in the implementation of the lunar program. Moreover, the Chinese can boast of several successful projects at once. At the end of last year, the Chang'e-5 capsule, launched four years ago, returned to earth, on board of which the lunar soil was delivered. An unprecedented landing a year and a half ago of the Chinese apparatus "Yuytu-2" on the far side of the moon. “China previously announced the implementation of its own lunar program, the main focus of which was the exploration and development of lunar resources. To solve this problem, manned expeditions are needed, that is, the participation of specialists directly on the lunar surface. So for Russia, unification with Chinese colleagues is a pretty good option, "Shevchenko said.

Moiseev denied speculation that the lunar race is spurred on by plans to gain a military advantage in space. According to him,

The moon is "absolutely useless for the military" due to its remoteness from Earth.

“A missile launched from an American submarine will reach Russia in 15 minutes. The rocket will fly from the moon for three days, during which time the war will already end. Suggestions to use the Moon to observe the Earth are also stupid. Any satellite in the correct orbit will transmit much better intelligence. Therefore, all the talk about militarization is a diplomatic-political game, ”the source explained.

Moiseev believes that the intentions of Roscosmos to cooperate with China is largely due to the fact that the Americans are curtailing such cooperation with Russia. “The Chinese declare their readiness to cooperate with all countries, but at the same time demand to provide them with technology. If we talk about joint Russian-Chinese projects, the Chinese could put their instruments on our automatic station, but, unfortunately, we have been building our station for 14 years and have not yet launched it, ”the expert recalls.

Text: Andrey Rezchikov

https://m.vz.ru/society/2021/2/13/1084880.html

Nomad5891 wrote:I see for some time there is some sort of devision between memebrs on if Roscosmos and Russia in general is doing well or bad over the past few years, even decades.

I for one prefer to rely on facts and sadly what I see is the following:
Total launches per country 2015
Russia 27
USA 20
China 19

Total launches per country 2016
China 22
USA 22
Russia 19

Total launches per country 2017
USA 30
Russia 20
China 18

Total launches per country 2018
China 39
USA 34
Russia 20

Total launches per country 2019
China 34
USA 27
Russia 25

Total launches per country 2020
USA 44
China 39
Russia 17

For 2021, we already have 6 Launches for USA, 3 for China and just 1 from Russia.

I think it is pretty obvious that in a little more than 5 years Russia has gone from being a leader in rocket launces to the 3rd place. And mind you, 3rd place by not some marginal difference - China, that is in second place, has launched more than the double ammount of rockets for 2020.

So in my view it is clear something is going wrong in Roscosmos. What we see are the results of years, maybe decades of bad management, badly put goals, wasted budgets and oportunities.
The interesting thing to see if somehow this trend can be stopped and even inversed by the russians?

Is not Roscosmos to blame , is the master idiot president putin ,who have cut significatnly the space budget for roscosmos , there have been no less than 2 cosmonauts who resigned their job , because
the space program was paralized , they told the government is distracted (in others things) and not giving priority to space ,they resigned because in their words. there was nothing to do for them.
Then later you have dimitry rogozin complaining that the russian government (putin) pretend that roscosmos do as well as nasa and china with only 1/20 of their budget.   believe it or not ,the idiot president putin cut the budget of Russia space program in half..   and this likely was done to cover their bullshit olympics , that is where that idiot was more interested.  now all that money was totally wasted in totally irrelevant infrastructure that in no fucking way ,will help Russia to grow in science or space , and is all bullshit e-penis contest that sports is.

This is what i say about putin's vision of russia ,is a cosmetic development , development without grow ,without advacing science ,without promoting science or engineering ,but instead promoting
bullshit tribalism contest , as competitive sports is..  Instead of increasing the budget as US and CHINA did , in times that russia truly needs to project that is not an outdated nation ,as he always does , he instead cut the budget in half of its space program.   That are the only fucking thing
that Russia had ,to influence the west ,into cooperation with Russia.  

All this hockey bullshit what promotes is fist fight and nationalism bullshit , the one that promote rascism and disrespect of others. putin is an imbecile in a literal way ,because his development of russia economy ,is not only retarded but also dangerous too ,because promote ethnic divisions too.
putin says he promotes sports because it promotes "healthy life"  look how retarded he is , all this skating cause major lifetime injuries in people for winning a stupid useless medal , or even death ,
as is the case of martial arts sports ,that people have died in moscow as it is in UFC.
When you have a fucking moron , as chief of russia , you can't expect this pretty bad poor performance of russia space..

everyone but Russia is making headlines today ,sending orbiters to mars ,with rovers , china ,united emirates arabs,and of course nasa pretty much dominates for very long space explorations . and it is thanks to that fucking idiot president , that russia space program is now in third place and will fall in 4th place or just completely collapse ,because all this lack of ambitions from putin's Russia in space , demoralize the space industry and will make many to resign ,as a few cosmonauts with world records have done , but also is dangerous ,because will encourage engineers and scientist to move to china or US , where they will be paid far more and where truly interesting things happenings in space.

So is not Roscosmos fault ,is the imbecile president of russia ,the only one to blame ,he assigns the budget of russia space program , he is directly in charge of supervising it and assigning money for it ,and he is the one holding back russia space program for many years. When you have the director of roscosmos openly in rebelion with the system , speaking about low salaries demotivates people ,about sabotages , then you know something really bad is going on there. Remove putin and put rogozing as president and at very least ,russia will be back in space ,because he have been very voicy
about russia need to lead in space and not just catchup with the west.  all this lack of funding is what cause Roscosmos to not know what to do with so little funding , this is what caused them to switch from Soyuz5 to angara back and forth ,because there extremely limited budget cause them to only one in work project at a time , and not fully know the direction in which way to go , until they try first.

Russia needs to return to the soviet era ambitious space program ,that had one team in the moon ,
other in mars and other in venus , another team doing space shuttles with space and military goals, and another a moon manned rocket.  Russia have plenty of money to do that , the problem is the incompetent president putin , that don't put priorities in the places it should be , if that fucking idiot ,
did not wasted close to $100 billions USD $ dollars in bullshit sports avenues and hostiling olympics, from 2010 to 2020 , then that money will have gone to the russian space program instead and promote that russian citizens focus in achieving science and engineering degreess instead of totally useless meaningless e-penis competitions ,like competitive sports are.  when putin pays more money to hockey players than to their rocket scientist ,and give them brand new ,BMW cars , then you know something is really bad with him.  many of those people who got gold and silver medals are not living in russia anymore and moved to the west.    All the money that could have gone to russia space program ,hundreds of billions dollars , goes to cosmetic development ,like expensive parks in moscow ,for relaxing society.  and in building entertainment parks , like the very expensive russian disney that putin created in moscow ,that is full of main american culture business.  

So is putin ,the only one to blame for russia space program being so quiet and lagging so much the west ,and china ,and staying as a taxi service for the 20 years putin have been in power.  

meanwhile china is making headlines .. not only for their rover in the moon ,already there , but a new orbiter+lander mission they sent to mars.  as is showing the first pictures of the planet.




even the middle east is showing more actions in space exploration than putin's Russia.  


This is how you break the ICE , this is how you promote business , this is how you lure the west
into your country orbit..  is called success , if russia wants to be respected their interest and to attract nations into its orbit ,it will never achieve this with putin's politeness bullshit or with pretty parks and gas discounts , is only with true nation development , with business success in the things that really matters that takes nations in to the future ,the things very few nations or none can do ,which is success in technology and science and in business that society more enjoy as entertainment business are.  

Putin bitch and cry all the time ,the west don't respect Russia ,so why the fuck that imbecile don't do anything about it ? This is how Russia can promote respect , this is how russia can silence the west ,that rightly accuse russia of being an obsolete and outdated nation , this is how you counter american imperialism and their dominating influence ,by showing the world ,they don't need to follow an unfair western system , and giveaway their sovereignty ,because other alternatives to the american business world exist.. Nobody anymore calls china an outdated ,primitive nation ,because
they have shown the world ,they can compete with the western leading business. nobody jokes anymore about china scientific and technology power. but russia still is not there , all that putin consider important is weapons ,that he never use against enemies ,and gas stations.

It should be eye opening that china today in just 10 years ,since they began to compete with american business ,have much more influence in the west ,that russia ever had on its entire history . Russia have only hard power ,that is their military ,(that never is used to directly stop its enemies) ,Russia lacks seriously of softpower ,and the things more softpower produce are civilian business that society more appreciate and enjoy ,Russia softpower ,russia influence with the west literary does not exist. now have a vaccine ,that soviet era scientist produced and nothing else. this is a disgrace that such country with so much potential ,is pushed back by just one clueless president , like putin is.

Russian cooperation with China is promising because I rather suspect they will be far more reliable partners than the west has been so far.

Yes, I believe Russia can use a little more ambition in its space program. It has been away especially from the exploration part that it risks becoming a newbie again. It needs to experience failures and snags and push forward inspite of that until the glorious successes arrive.

The reason is the space industry is not just about making money or servicing your military needs. It is also about inspiring your nation, the next generation in particular. Those are the kids that go into the sciences with this inspiration.

While I was a kid my nation used to be a member of the communist block and the space launch events from the Soviet Union were often in the news. I used to think how lucky it was to be in a country where you can hope to one day be a cosmonaut. Even that was enough for me to go into engineering.

Now I see China duplicating the milestones of the SU in the exact order and then beginning to surpass it where it failed. While I truly admire the Chinese for their determination, it is also truly sad that a once great space faring nation is reduced to competing in the number of low orbit launches with newcomers. Truly sad.

But I still harbor hope that with the commissioning of the new heavy vehicles and the fully coming online of the vostochny spaceport, Russia once again will be dreaming ahead. The lunar station concept is a start, but they need to get their butt moving and make things happen faster. I am not too sure about the cooperation with China though. As usual the Chinese will be thinking of ripping what they can and going their own way.

Kiko wrote:Russia and China enter the lunar race with America
.......

They insist on calling it a race even after previous self-inflicted humiliation when they threw in a towel on the finish line?

To say nothing of the fact that not even Americans call it a race and a massive headstart they have...

Kiko wrote:...NASA head James Bridenstine expressed hope that Moscow will join the Artemis Agreements. Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin also recently announced that the spirit of international cooperation that characterizes the International Space Station (ISS) should be preserved in Artemis by providing flight capabilities for Russian spacecraft. “The main goal of the Artemis Agreements is to explore useful lunar resources, to extract them,” Shevchenko stressed....

Cooperation with China is a separate topic but Russia should definitely agree to take part in Artemis program because conditions are too good to pass up

All they have to do is to build one tiny docking module which they don't even have to launch themselves and they will be given a front row seat on a huge multinational lunar program

They wouldn't even need to do manned launches if they don't want to because they would be getting a seat on Orion

Plus having a Russian present on the American operated space project would piss off all the right people in DC and Brussels for decades to come which alone is worth the price of admission

If they want to do separate thing as well (which they should) then go for it but make sure you take the easy wins



It's ​possible that Russians want to have first Russian on the Moon delivered by Russian spaceship but this is pointless ego fluffing: nobody will ever care about first Russian on the Moon just like nobody cares about first American or Chinaman in space

After Gagarin everyone else was irrelevant

After Armstrong everyone else was irrelevant (hell, even poor Buzz couldn't get some recognition despite being right out the door behind him and flying the damn thing in the first place)


Don't put all your eggs in one basket especially when a basket is being offered to you for next to nothing

GarryB wrote:Russian cooperation with China is promising because I rather suspect they will be far more reliable partners than the west has been so far.

Like cooperation with China on CR-929?

I doubt it

Don't put all your eggs in one basket especially when a basket is being offered to you for next to nothing

UAE releases first image of Mars shot by its weather orbiter Amal (PHOTO)




https://www.rt.com/news/515540-uae-mars-orbiter-photo/


This should be very demoralizing for Russia space industry ,their entire engineering and scientific community , when even tiny little middle east terrorist states are sending probes to mars.. and their own nation is eating shit ,distracted in others things ,thanks to their super outdated President.

This will not only be a major boost for United arabs emirates image in the world, this will also have
a more problematic issue directly for Russia , because this will make their  5th column of muslim in russia to transform this into a "religious victory" ,  the way they will see it , of islam in the world , over christian russia ,and will damage even more Russia mediocre culture influence and religion over their problematic caucasus citizens ,and renew their interest to promote islam in Russia.    


but no worries , putin will respond by showing Russia potatoes farming records, and a photo his years empty facilities in sochi ,to counter this massive achievements in space of other nations.
No even soviet union ever managed to do this ,send full color pictures of mars ,imagine how shameful is this. Everyone needs to be thankful to "masterchess" putin.  

By the time that moron sends anything to mars.. in the year 2035 but more like 2050 at this slow rate , it will not matter at all ,anything they do there.  He should just cancel Russia space program for once ,and give up in space and send Roscosmons scientist and engineers to work in china , at least their talent will not be wasted there and will be doing something positive to balance the world and stop any attempts for an unilateral world.

kvs wrote:My oh my what delusion. America giving gifts to Russia? Get a grip.

Someone mention gifts?

I went through the whole page and only one talking about gifts is you

Vann7 wrote:
This should be very demoralizing for Russia space industry ,their entire engineering and scientific community , when even tiny little middle east terrorist states are sending probes to mars.. and their own nation is eating shit ,distracted in others things ,thanks to their super outdated President.

Yeah... sure...  cuz the UAE writing checks to the Muricans to build the probe for them (with a couple of Emiratis helping out with coffee orders and sweeping the floor) and to the Japanese for a rocket to launch it.  Yup, that level of comprehensive space activity will surely put Russia to shame...  

Vann7 going full speed retard as usual.  I'm guessing he has poster of Navalny on his wall, wearing a tight pair of speedos and striking a suggestive pose.

Yes, I believe Russia can use a little more ambition in its space program. It has been away especially from the exploration part that it risks becoming a newbie again. It needs to experience failures and snags and push forward inspite of that until the glorious successes arrive.

Dreams are nice, but you need to fix the house that is falling down around your ears before you plan building a summer home on some beach somewhere you can't get to yet because you car is an old clunker.

Russia is doing everything right... diversification of the economy and build that up... build up launch platforms in your own country, design and test and build new rockets... and cooperate with everyone you can trust not to screw you over down the track.

I am not too sure about the cooperation with China though. As usual the Chinese will be thinking of ripping what they can and going their own way.

I am thinking the same about the Americans...

Cooperation with China is a separate topic but Russia should definitely agree to take part in Artemis program because conditions are too good to pass up

All they have to do is to build one tiny docking module which they don't even have to launch themselves and they will be given a front row seat on a huge multinational lunar program

They wouldn't even need to do manned launches if they don't want to because they would be getting a seat on Orion

Yeah, that is the allure of the cooperation with teh US... build the tricky docking bit like the bit you developed on Mir and we all used on Mir II that is often called ISS and then sit back and shut up and watch us to everything because this is our parade...

I believe the Russian official said as much when he rejected the offer.

Plus having a Russian present on the American operated space project would piss off all the right people in DC and Brussels for decades to come which alone is worth the price of admission

Probably there to clean the toilet because the Polish refused...

If they want to do separate thing as well (which they should) then go for it but make sure you take the easy wins

As you said Russia would get nothing out of it... why waste time and limited resources filling gaps in their technology set.

It's ​possible that Russians want to have first Russian on the Moon delivered by Russian spaceship but this is pointless ego fluffing: nobody will ever care about first Russian on the Moon just like nobody cares about first American or Chinaman in space

Why would Russia want their first cosmonaut to land on the moon be an uber customer of the US?

Don't put all your eggs in one basket especially when a basket is being offered to you for next to nothing

Don't put any eggs in the basket of the little hooligan that lives down the street and regularly throws old rotten eggs at your house.

He is not giving you a basket for your eggs, he is asking you to reweave his basket so his eggs don't fall out and he might carry an egg for you if you are good... but NASA is controlled by congress and congress could decide that the Russian can't go on this trip and if they object any more trips... but we will keep using their rocket motors and docking technology...

Like cooperation with China on CR-929?

I doubt it

Compared with US Russian cooperation on the Boeing 777... designed by Russian engineers in Moscow and made of a lot of Russian Titanium... but you would never know because Boeing is American and the Boeing 777 is an American plane... just like Desert Storm was an American operation.... the Vietnam war was an American war... and Artemus is an American programme...

Vann7 going full speed retard as usual. I'm guessing he has poster of Navalny on his wall, wearing a tight pair of speedos and striking a suggestive pose.

Nahhh, that poster didn't make the grade because the speedos cover too much of his man package for Vanns tastes... it was the bright yellow Borat Mankini that he is wearing... and slightly poking out of no doubt... it won him position on the wall.



But this is an interesting take on this situation:

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/508013-russia-rejects-joining-nasas-artemis-moon-program-in-favor-of-china

Americans claiming NASA is nice to Russia and that Russia is going to miss out if they don't carry American hand luggage again on their next safari...

The article doesn't specify in any detail why the Russians rejected the US offer which is suspicious... perhaps they realise their reasons were more valid than they are prepared to let on.

This is a better article:

https://bgr.com/2020/07/20/nasa-moon-mission-russia-roscosmos/

Russia isn’t keen on Artemis, sides with China for Moon exploration


By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
July 20th, 2020 at 2:15 PM

Russia’s space agency has publicly stated it has no interest in participating in NASA’s Artemis missions that would eventually return humans to the lunar surface.
Roscosmos is instead siding with China, partnering up for future space exploration efforts.
NASA’s plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024 are in serious jeopardy.

NASA’s plan to return to the Moon by 2024 has been a long shot since the moment it was first announced. The space agency needs a whole lot of cash to make it happen and, at the moment, it doesn’t have the funds to cover it. Predictably, NASA is doing its best to rally support from its international allies to share in both the cost and the new discoveries that a crewed mission to the Moon could bring.

Since Russia has been a huge part of NASA’s work for decades, it seemed a given that the country would want to be involved in the Artemis missions as well. Now, as Ars Technica reports, it appears as though Russia wants nothing to do with NASA’s plans for a 2024 Moon mission and is instead getting comfy with China’s space group.

Dmitri Rogozin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, spared few words when addressing NASA’s Artemis missions. Put simply, he doesn’t think that NASA’s return to the Moon is really about science at all.

“It’s more of a political project for the US now,” Rogozin said in an interview with a Russian newspaper. “With the lunar project, we are seeing our US partners move away from the principles of cooperation and mutual support that have developed with cooperation on the ISS. They see their program not as international but as similar to NATO.”

Those are some harsh words, but they’re actually spot-on. NASA was ordered by the Trump administration to return to the Moon by 2024 even though the timeline was far from feasible. To its credit, NASA has been scrambling to piece together a crewed mission to the lunar surface that might have a slim chance of launching by 2024, but the situation is far from ideal.

When the mandate was handed to NASA, it looked a lot like Trump just wanted to put a feather in his own cap regarding a crewed return to the Moon. In the months since, NASA has tried to rally support from lawmakers but its budget still doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of muscle it will take for a 2024 Moon mission to become a reality.

Meanwhile, while China’s efforts to explore the lunar surface surging, Russia has clearly chosen a side, and it’s not with the United States. Rogozin even went so far as to call China “definitely our partner” for space science in the short term, noting that “relations between Russia and China are very good.”

NASA still has support from friends in Europa and Japan for its Artemis efforts, but it may not be enough. We’ll have to see how things evolve going forward, but at the moment the success of the Artemis missions appears to be in limbo.

kvs wrote:Any argument that Russia should be eagerly signing up for joint projects with any NATzO state in the current climate of
anti-Russian hysteria and sanctions is totally detached from reality.   If America wants the prestige, then it has to earn
it by itself.   Russia is currently still propping the yanquis up with rocket motors and astronaut deliveries to the ISS.  Note
how Musk's stunts are already being used to forcefully forget this contribution.    Americans and their minions are petty,
resentful, sore losers who act like the typical SJW who encounters uncomfortable facts: they want to cancel Russia.
There is no way that Russia will get any benefit from joining NATzO's Moon efforts.   At best Russia will be painted as
some charity case even if it is pivotal to these efforts.

Agreed. The US just wants some "poor cousin" Russians as a token presence to feed their egos as they run the program as they see fit, make all decisions, and then give the Russians their orders to show who is Boss. Every cock sucker of a murican politician with an axe to grind with Russia (ie 99% of them) will use Artemis as potential sanctions pressure point to force compliance every time the US initiates a pissing contest over some trivial geopolitical nonsense.

Better for Russia to focus on contributing resources and technologies to a joint Russia-China program. The Chinese will be genuinely grateful for the assistance and it will cement Eurasian solidarity.

I agree that for Russia in the long run it would be better to run their own Lunar Mission. Or at least coopearate with China. Having the USA handle them the crumbs will make them dependant and uncle Sam will be able to turn the switch off as he pleases.

Production of ground infrastructure for Arktika-KN satellites has begun



The active life of the devices will be 8 years

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Barl has started manufacturing ground-based infrastructure for the Arktika-KN space group. This was announced by the General designer of JSC "RPC "barl" Valery Labutin.

"We have started manufacturing the ground infrastructure [of the Arktika-KN group], and we have started manufacturing the load for this spacecraft," Labutin said at a round table of the Federation Council Committee on economic policy on the prospects for commercial space programs.

As specified in Labutin's presentation, the resolution of the satellites of the grouping will be 40 meters in the visible range and 60 meters in the IR range. The active life of the devices will be 8 years.

"AIS equipment will also be installed on the spacecraft, which will allow receiving information about the routes of vessels," the presentation says.

In October 2020, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, during a speech at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, spoke about plans to create a grouping of Arctic-KN satellites to monitor the waters of the Northern sea route. According to him, it will be able to receive information in various ranges and can be created as part of a public-private partnership.

https://z5h64q92x9.net/proxy_u/ru-en.en.fb9f465b-602b8c1b-f0ae0747-74722d776562/https/vpk.name/news/485770_nachalos_izgotovlenie_nazemnoi_infrastruktury_dlya_sputnikov_arktika-kn.html

George1 wrote:Russian Progress cargo ship launched into orbit to deliver cover plates to seal lSS leak

https://tass.com/science/1256377

What is more important is that it will dock to the Pirs module and when it leaves at mission's end, it will remove the Pirs along. This will vacate the nadir port for the upcoming Nauka module sometime this year. Some exciting news in a long time.

George1 wrote:Russian Progress cargo ship launched into orbit to deliver cover plates to seal lSS leak

https://tass.com/science/1256377

speaking about leaks..

Just remember , i was the first one in this forums to say this..  there is a 50% chance US government will try to murder Russian cosmonauts in space in some kind of false flag accident . Why i believe this ?

Because the west don't do things half way , once they move one feet in one direction ,they will move another and another,, if they allowed to continue in that direction . So if they started to sabotage the Russian equipment , they will have not done that ,if it was just to scares the Russians and nothing else. They will seek to murder in space Russian cosmonauts and will try to look at it as if it was an accident or even better to discredit the russian hardware as already old.

already rogozing told there was sabotage to their module came from the inside , someone drilled in a place there is no logic to do that, and later covered it with glue ,and he opened the possibility that nasa astronauts did it , albeit he did it in an indirectly way , by saying the sabotage could have happened in land or in space.

They are testing russia , into how far they can go ,to humiliate and demoralize Russia more.

If i was in security is roscosmos, will advice cosmonauts to always move in pairs ,no cosmonaut alone and have tons of cameras at all time inside and outside their modules recording any movement. Also carry guns ,and have plans for emergency evacuation . Roscosmos will need to remember NASA can load anything inside the ISS without telling them. including biological warfare, poison or special weapons.

Vann7 wrote:

Just remember , i was the first one in this forums to say this..  there is a 50% chance US government will try to murder Russian cosmonauts in space in some kind of false flag accident . Why i believe this ?

Because the west don't do things half way , once they move one feet in one direction ,they will move another and another,, if they allowed to continue in that direction . So if they started to sabotage the Russian equipment , they will have not done that ,if it was just to scares the Russians and nothing else. They will seek to murder in space Russian cosmonauts and will try to look at it as if it was an accident or even better to discredit the russian hardware as already old.

already rogozing told there was sabotage to their module came from the inside , someone drilled in a place there is no logic to do that, and later covered it with glue ,and he opened the possibility that nasa astronauts did it , albeit he did it in an indirectly way , by saying the sabotage could have happened in land or in space.

They are testing russia , into how far they can go ,to humiliate and demoralize Russia more.

If i was in security is roscosmos, will advice cosmonauts to always move in pairs ,no cosmonaut alone and have tons of cameras at all time inside and outside their modules recording any movement. Also carry guns ,and have plans for emergency evacuation . Roscosmos will need to remember NASA can load anything inside the ISS without telling them. including biological warfare, poison or special weapons.

All that seems a bit far fetched to me, but, in these age and times, who knows....

But speaking about sabotage, I believe the west is perfectly capable and willing to go to some length to disrupt Russian equipment in order to discredit their technology.

The Progress craft apparently experienced a malfunction in its automated docking and had to be guided manually by cosmonauts aboard the ISS. good thing Russians have a backup. It could be a genuine equipment failure or it could also be otherwise. How hard would it be to jam or mess with the Kurs altimeter antenna system?

kvs wrote:It is rather certain that there are sabotage efforts ongoing.   The spectacular failure of the Proton rocket a few years ago was the
direct result of a key component actually hammered into place upside down.   That is not an innocent manufacturing mistake, that
is deliberate sabotage. ... 

Not sabotage, just good old low grade workmanship and poor supervision

Not sabotage, just good old low grade workmanship and poor supervision

So your confidence that Russian workers are monkeys beats your suspicion of American sabotage as being the cause.

Is that because Russians are idiots or Americans are pure and innocent and would never consider such deception or evil act?

GarryB wrote:

Not sabotage, just good old low grade workmanship and poor supervision

So your confidence that Russian workers are monkeys beats your suspicion of American sabotage as being the cause.

Is that because Russians are idiots or Americans are pure and innocent and would never consider such deception or evil act?

Personally it is much easier to imagine an incompetent / tired / badly trained worker doing a mistake and then covering it up, than american astronaut ninjas with space drills run rampant (and undetected) arround the Russian sector of the ISS, drilling holes as they please.

And anyways drilling a hole in the wall that keeps you alive in outer space would be the dumbest sabotage done ever. So are you saying american astronauts are idiots?

Nomad5891 wrote:

GarryB wrote:

Not sabotage, just good old low grade workmanship and poor supervision

So your confidence that Russian workers are monkeys beats your suspicion of American sabotage as being the cause.

Is that because Russians are idiots or Americans are pure and innocent and would never consider such deception or evil act?

Personally it is much easier to imagine an incompetent / tired / badly trained worker doing a mistake and then covering it up, than american astronaut ninjas with space drills run rampant (and undetected) arround the Russian sector of the ISS, drilling holes as they please.

And anyways drilling a hole in the wall that keeps you alive in outer space would be the dumbest sabotage done ever. So are you saying american astronauts are idiots?

The USA willing to go great length to sabotage the IRanian, German, Russian,Notrh Korean, Japanese and so selected military / goverment programs, with tools ranging from missinformation, supporting /creating internatl political movement, simple bribery.


Why you think there is a difference between leting the IMF to give loans to Ukraine after deffaulting the Russian goverment bonds and making simple sabotages in aerospace indsutry that has the same magnitude of financial loss, and the space thingy cost only few million , compared to the 100 millions of the ukrainan case example ?