Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

Russia completes contract for the supply of RD-180 rocket engines to the United States
Today, 12: 46
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Russia has completed a contract for the supply of RD-180 rocket engines to the United States, the last batch has gone to the customer. This was announced by Roskosmos.

As explained, on April 14, NPO Energomash handed over to the American side the last six RD-180 engines produced for the United States under the current contract. Representatives of American companies signed documents on the acceptance of engines, after which they will be sent to the States.

It is noted that this is the last batch under the contract, it was supposed to go to the United States in 2020, but the delivery did not take place due to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the entire period of cooperation, Energomash has delivered 122 RD-180 engines to the United States.

However, Energomash does not intend to lose the American market and is negotiating new contracts for Russian rocket engines. It is not excluded that the United States, despite the demands of Congress to completely abandon Russian engines, will sign a new agreement. At least last year, it was reported that US dependence on the RD-180 and RD-181 will last until 2024 at least.

At the same time, the sale of Russian engines to the Americans brings up to a third of Energomash's proceeds. A complete refusal to supply can lead to losses from 10 to 13 billion rubles per year.

The RD-180 engines are used on the Atlas rockets, and the R-181 engines are used on the Antares rockets, which are used to send Cygnus cargo ships to the ISS.

https://en.topwar.ru/182050-rossija-zavershila-kontrakt-na-postavku-ssha-raketnyh-dvigatelej-rd-180.html

Nomad5891 wrote:

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?

No is not ,when you understand how the west thinks and behave.
When they attack their enemies ,they do it step by step ,very slowly , increasing each time , even more the pressure , this is done to minimize the response of their enemies as much as possible.

The hole they drilled in the Russian side of the iss , was only to send a strong message first , that not even in space Russia will be safe. is called psicological warfare. Putin is largely responsible for this slow war , this slow attacks ,because the west see they can get away with it , as long they do it slowly
and little by little and by proxy. kill a soldiers here , then an ambassador over there , then later a russian general ,then later a russian base attacked with drones americans gave to the terrorist.

because they see putin weakness and insecurity ,this tell west ,they can humiliate russia little by little
if they do it slowly and in a smaller scale. This sabotage also can be used to send a message to the world ,how vulnerable is Russia.

So the sabotage to the russian module ,in the only place there is cooperation ,or there was ,it was to send a strong message , that americans can punish russia and get away with it ,that this is how far they will go ,in their hostilities , that they are capable of murdering russian cosmonauts too ,just to humilliate russia. this is what they are doing in olympics ,banning russia from it , just to humiliate russia. and to send a strong message to the world ,that they will be attacked too .

so this are only the start of sabotage campaign , the next sabotage could be something much
worse or the murder of a cosmonaut , with poison . or a bio weapon in their food.

Vann7 wrote:

At least your kitty litter post is getting used properly!

Big_Gazza wrote:

Looks to be a dual launch of Yenisei & Don?  Presumably Don launches first to put the lander into lunar orbit, then the crew depart and rendezvouz in lunar orbit.

On these slides, two schemes are compared: with the use of the STK launch vehicle and with the use of the Angara-A5B missiles. In general, it is indicated that the scheme with four launches of A5B has greater reliability and lower cost compared to the RN STK

PapaDragon wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

Looks to be a dual launch of Yenisei & Don?  Presumably Don launches first to put the lander into lunar orbit, then the crew depart and rendezvouz in lunar orbit.

On these slides, two schemes are compared: with the use of the STK launch vehicle and with the use of the Angara-A5B missiles. In general, it is indicated that the scheme with four launches of A5B has greater reliability and lower cost compared to the RN STK

Translation: "small rocket we kinda have now is more reliable than big rocket we said we would have but are nowhere near to actually having"

Also, 4 launches are more reliable?

Why not make it even more reliable and go for 12 Soyuz launches?

I mean reliability clearly goes way up with number of launches according to Trampoline Man and when was He ever wrong?

"sigh." First, this is a presentation by scientists from RSC Energia. Rogozin has nothing to do with it. By the way, Rogozin is mainly in favor of building a super-heavy-class rocket. The slides show that from the point of view of technical novelty, a manned lunar expedition is more reliably feasible with the use of a multi-launch scheme and the assembly of a flight complex in orbit. I will reveal a terrible secret: back in the sixties, scientists came to the conclusion that real space exploration must inevitably lead to the implementation of the assembly of flight complexes in orbit. This has not yet been refuted by anyone.
Taking into account the development of modern technologies in the field of positioning, calculations of orbit parameters and the accuracy of launch vehicles, we are at the level of technical feasibility of complex multi - stage assembly of modular structures in orbit: the history of the creation of the Mir and ISS stations guarantees this. Flying to the moon with a single launch is a monstrously inefficient enterprise in terms of energy costs. But the most important thing is that in the first version, a single launch is not considered-there are supposed to be two launches of the STK launch vehicle of various modifications.

Any expedition requires support equipment and food.

The expedition to climb Mount Everest took over 1,000 sherpas who carried food and equipment and supplies to over a dozen base camps all the way up the mountain so that the people actually doing the climbing could carry the minimum on their backs most of the way.

Despite the enormous number of people involved only two people actually set foot on the top of the mountain.

They had to take some of the air that they were breathing, but not all the air that they were breathing for everyone in the party.

A trip to Mars is going to need multiple trips... if they can they will send rockets ahead of the humans to land space craft that might be used as a base of operations... if it can find water and start extracting it for use as air and water and rocket fuel then if the human launch can arrive to a ready made base with enough water to convert to rocket fuel to fly directly back home if needed would be ideal, but just in terms of fuel required to get there a Mars mission with people on board is going to need about 10 times what the Saturn V rocket could manage.... if not more.... there is no way for a single rocket to be launched up into space and fly directly to Mars and then come back to earth.

What is more likely is that some sort of space ship (ie an craft intended to operate in space but not to land anywhere... like the ISS) will be assembled in space using lots and lots of launches of rockets. Then more rocket launches will take up enormous amounts of food and equipment and likely a lot of 3D printers.... and people to assemble everything and make sure it is all working... and then finally the crew that is going to Mars orbit will get aboard and the whole structure will go to Mars... it will be an enormous battle between making it as small and light as possible so it doesn't take 2 years to get there, but big enough to carry everything needed to actually allow it to get there and come straight back without landing just in case something goes very wrong.

In most scenarios once you leave earth orbit and are half way to Mars if something goes seriously wrong they are probably all dead... because once they are on their way it would take as much time to stop and turn around and start heading back as it would to keep going and perhaps use Mars as a sling shot to come back...

As I said if they had a mars base already built with food and water already in place it would greatly reduce the amount of stuff they would need to take so they could be the people who climbed Everest without having to take absolutely everything with them.

PapaDragon wrote:

Translation: "small rocket we kinda have now is more reliable than big rocket we said we would have but are nowhere near to actually having"

Also, 4 launches are more reliable?

Why not make it even more reliable and go for 12 Soyuz launches?

I mean reliability clearly goes way up with number of launches according to Trampoline Man and when was He ever wrong?

I feel the pain papa, Russian space agency is still under productive and the whole fucking confusion with their dreams, phantoms and illusions and what actually comes alive.

So far:

Modernization of Soyuz -- good value -- 2 days to 6 hours to under 3 hours
Angara -- Too slow to see its purpose other than eco fuel but it exists
Proton -- Nothing yet to replace other than dreams and illusions -- A7 may replace this?
Vostchny -- Big scale, so problems are expected but its coming on....good investment and leverage on Kazakhs
Heavy rockets -- lot of bluster -- I would say 15 years away at least and need is not critical other than bragging rights
Satellites -- Good progress and very important area
Space exploration -- not that priority, let China invest, being 2nd is not that bad if it saves money
Fundamental research -- I think Russians never stopped this
Zenit like rocket would be good and sea launch would also prove to be helpful

Fact is space is not priority and rightfully so at the moment, it was a soviet fetish to the extreme and I would let the Chinese and more wealthy to show their talents a bit. Lot of copying from US and Russia....

Russia to decide on pullout from ISS since 2025 after technical inspection

According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov’s administration, the timeframe of the station’s operations has expired and its condition leaves much to be desired

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Russia will carry out a technical inspection of the International Space Station and will make a decision on withdrawing from the project since 2025, and will inform its foreign partners.

According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov’s administration, the timeframe of the station’s operations has expired and its condition leaves much to be desired. "Lately, reports about technical malfunctions have been coming more often. In order to avoid any risks in case of accidents, it’s necessary to carry out a technical inspection of the station. After this, a decision should be made."

"And they [partners] should be fairly notified about the withdrawal from the ISS since 2025," Borisov was quoted as saying in Moscow. Kremlin. Putin program on Rossiya-1 TV channel.

The issue on continuing Russia’s participation in the ISS project was discussed at a meeting on space with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 12.

https://tass.com/science/1279545

The video above shows "Russian militarization of space". Actually it is about a Soviet military space station.

The first ever machine gun rounds for use in space are shown at the beginning.

kvs wrote:The video above shows "Russian militarization of space".    Actually it is about a Soviet military space station.

The first ever machine gun rounds for use in space are shown at the beginning.

The video is unique in more ways than one. The interview is also given by Boris Volynov , the only survivor of the First Cosmonaut Squad to date.
Among other things, he reports: the Almaz station required only 150 grams of fuel per day to maintain the parameters of the working orbit. In a certain sense, this station was more advanced than the Mir and the ISS.

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:The video above shows "Russian militarization of space".    Actually it is about a Soviet military space station.

The first ever machine gun rounds for use in space are shown at the beginning.

The video is unique in more ways than one. The interview is also given by Boris Volynov , the only survivor of the First Cosmonaut Squad to date.
Among other things, he reports: the Almaz station required only 150 grams of fuel per day to maintain the parameters of the working orbit. In a certain sense, this station was more advanced than the Mir and the ISS.

I still don't get the point of having station manned for all the time....they should rethink the purpose now that they understand the long term cosmic effects on humans in confined environment and outer space. Station needs to be more of a powerful satellite with quarters for experments as needed by docking to it just like now. Too many problems and not much new discoveries...

gbu48098 wrote:

I still don't get the point of having station manned for all the time....they should rethink the purpose now that they understand the long term cosmic effects on humans in confined environment and outer space. Station needs to be more of a powerful satellite with quarters for experments as needed by docking to it just like now. Too many problems and not much new discoveries...

Most of the time of the Almaz station was spent in unmanned mode. Two of the five launched were completely unmanned.

I still don't get the point of having station manned for all the time....they should rethink the purpose now that they understand the long term cosmic effects on humans in confined environment and outer space. Station needs to be more of a powerful satellite with quarters for experments as needed by docking to it just like now. Too many problems and not much new discoveries...

If the cold war had not ended in the early 1990s and the US had not sent cosmonauts to MIR and experienced long term space flight for themselves and sent people to Mars they would have died.

Like it or not Man has to work out how to tolerate time in space if they are ever going to go anywhere, and I think going to the Moon and Mars will be a good thing because it forces us to learn to be efficient with energy and food and water and air... many of the recycling technologies they will need to develop for space travel can be used on earth... even if it is just packaging for food that can be directly useful for other things... reusable, or can compost to grow food, or simply breaks down into its based chemicals in a safe way that they can be reused for other things or discarded safely that wont pollute the environment on earth or in space.

In fact on earth it is easier... just biodegrading is enough, but in space making it able to be used as worm food for growing food, or even just reduced to atoms and artificially accelerated and directed out the back of the space craft as propulsion fuel in a form that is not hazardous to future missions blowing past at high speed.

Empty space is not empty... there will be dust and gas particles out there anyway.

Russias new space station will be much better designed and likely allow a lot more docking points and expansion points for new permanent and temporary modules to be added.

Hopefully one thing it could have is a nuclear propelled vessel that can recover material from orbit and either bring it back to the space station if it is valuable, or send it down at the earth at high speeds so it burns up in the atmosphere and no longer poses a collision danger for other things in orbit.

Recovering old satellites that have been up there for decades would be valuable to inspect them and see what sort of damage has been done by various impacts and collisions. There are satellites that had nuclear reactors that were boosted to much higher altitude orbits to delay their reentry for thousands of years so we could have time to work out how to deal with them more safely... this might be a chance to have a look at them and perhaps bundle a few together and assemble and test rocket in space and fuel it... the experience would be useful for future missions to the Moon or Mars. Then launch the bundle of nuclear reactors into the sun... the ultimate furnace. It was mostly the reactors that were boosted into higher orbit and the rest of the satellite burned up on re entry.

GarryB wrote:

I still don't get the point of having station manned for all the time....they should rethink the purpose now that they understand the long term cosmic effects on humans in confined environment and outer space. Station needs to be more of a powerful satellite with quarters for experments as needed by docking to it just like now. Too many problems and not much new discoveries...

If the cold war had not ended in the early 1990s and the US had not sent cosmonauts to MIR and experienced long term space flight for themselves and sent people to Mars they would have died.

Like it or not Man has to work out how to tolerate time in space if they are ever going to go anywhere, and I think going to the Moon and Mars will be a good thing because it forces us to learn to be efficient with energy and food and water and air... many of the recycling technologies they will need to develop for space travel can be used on earth... even if it is just packaging for food that can be directly useful for other things... reusable, or can compost to grow food, or simply breaks down into its based chemicals in a safe way that they can be reused for other things or discarded safely that wont pollute the environment on earth or in space.

In fact on earth it is easier... just biodegrading is enough, but in space making it able to be used as worm food for growing food, or even just reduced to atoms and artificially accelerated and directed out the back of the space craft as propulsion fuel in a form that is not hazardous to future missions blowing past at high speed.

Empty space is not empty... there will be dust and gas particles out there anyway.
Russias new space station will be much better designed and likely allow a lot more docking points and expansion points for new permanent and temporary modules to be added.

Hopefully one thing it could have is a nuclear propelled vessel that can recover material from orbit and either bring it back to the space station if it is valuable, or send it down at the earth at high speeds so it burns up in the atmosphere and no longer poses a collision danger for other things in orbit.

Recovering old satellites that have been up there for decades would be valuable to inspect them and see what sort of damage has been done by various impacts and collisions. There are satellites that had nuclear reactors that were boosted to much higher altitude orbits to delay their reentry for thousands of years so we could have time to work out how to deal with them more safely... this might be a chance to have a look at them and perhaps bundle a few together and assemble and test rocket in space and fuel it... the experience would be useful for future missions to the Moon or Mars. Then launch the bundle of nuclear reactors into the sun... the ultimate furnace. It was mostly the reactors that were boosted into higher orbit and the rest of the satellite burned up on re entry.

Yes, except that my point was no new discoveries any more like that. It was more of the same. During cold war limits were stressed and ideas were born but now even US can't afford as funny money is all that is there now....not sure if world is moving forward or going backward as far as economics is concerned and space is a luxury dependent on economics especially deep exploration. Even the "genius" Musk robbed all the research and hard work that was painfully done before by govt's and he can't profit from deep exploration that easily. Chinese are more of the same that was done 40 years ago and same with India.

Scorpius wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

Looks to be a dual launch of Yenisei & Don?  Presumably Don launches first to put the lander into lunar orbit, then the crew depart and rendezvouz in lunar orbit.

On these slides, two schemes are compared: with the use of the STK launch vehicle and with the use of the Angara-A5B missiles. In general, it is indicated that the scheme with four launches of A5B has greater reliability and lower cost compared to the RN STK

Translation: "small rocket we kinda have now is more reliable than big rocket we said we would have but are nowhere near to actually having"

Also, 4 launches are more reliable?

Why not make it even more reliable and go for 12 Soyuz launches?

I mean reliability clearly goes way up with number of launches according to Trampoline Man and when was He ever wrong?

"sigh." First, this is a presentation by scientists from RSC Energia. Rogozin has nothing to do with it. By the way, Rogozin is mainly in favor of building a super-heavy-class rocket. The slides show that from the point of view of technical novelty, a manned lunar expedition is more reliably feasible with the use of a multi-launch scheme and the assembly of a flight complex in orbit. I will reveal a terrible secret: back in the sixties, scientists came to the conclusion that real space exploration must inevitably lead to the implementation of the assembly of flight complexes in orbit. This has not yet been refuted by anyone.
Taking into account the development of modern technologies in the field of positioning, calculations of orbit parameters and the accuracy of launch vehicles, we are at the level of technical feasibility of complex multi - stage assembly of modular structures in orbit: the history of the creation of the Mir and ISS stations guarantees this. Flying to the moon with a single launch is a monstrously inefficient enterprise in terms of energy costs. But the most important thing is that in the first version, a single launch is not considered-there are supposed to be two launches of the STK launch vehicle of various modifications.

don't bother explaining anything to low IQ trolls ,they are the most irrelevant people in the entire forum . Rogozin is one of the most spoken politicians in the Russian government for disagreeing with the cuts of Russia space budget all the time ,he don't keep his mouth shut ,when something is wrong with the way Russia space program , is being funded by  the Russian government and putin. It is only thanks to him ,that things are moving , and that we are aware there is an actual sabotage happening from NASA on the Russian module. falling rocks in space can't drill inside the space station, neither later cover it with cheap glue the hole ,only humans can do that  . and the machinery that do such a thing do a lot of noise , so will have not been possible to hide that noise from cameras when the module was assembled in earth. Someone did it ,
and it was NASA astronauts the main suspect..and the only possible ones, since their country is in an open undeclared war with Russia. their goal was not to kill cosmonauts (for now) , but to send a strong message ,that Russia need to watch their back even in space. Nothing like this ever happened before , and as soon NASA show the capability to send humans to space with spacex ,is when the sabotage on russian module start.  

marks my words , they will try to murder a Russian cosmonaut in space , and humiliate Russia one more time. I warned about such thing possible ,even before the sabotage scandal started.  They also could unleash a new virus ,in the Russian module too ,with only their astronauts immunity from it , or poison their oxygen tank ,or simply they can sabotage the russian equipment to fail when they go for a space walk.  So this cooperation of Putin with a nation that is  incapable of any agreement with Russia (as even Lavrov have recently said ) and unofficially in an undeclared war with them ,is a major big ,very big blunder ,that Putin is playing with the lives of their cosmonauts.  will be surprising if they don't try it ,and literary try to assassinate one , and make it look like an accident ,
and hide their hands.

Russia told will abandon the ISS cooperation in 2025 , but they better do that this same year .
and look instead for a space station with nations who are truly friends of Russia ,and not those who wants to harm their nation ,military and even cosmonauts.  if i were putin , will create an international space station with BRICS nations only , and a few other friendly major rising powers like  mexico and even invite Iran too ,that will anger some of their enemies.  

During the general meeting of the Department of Medical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Atkov (MD, USSR pilot-cosmonaut, Soyuz T-10 crew member), without directly naming names, reported data that allows us to conclude that the hole in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft was drilled by NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who was in a state of severe psychological stress due to fears for her health.

https://www.mk.ru/science/2021/04/19/kosmonavt-atkov-nameknul-kto-prosverlil-dyru-v-soyuzems09.html

The source, of course, is not very reliable, but...