Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #4

European robotic arm installed on Russia’s Nauka space research module

A source in the Russian space industry earlier told TASS that the Nauka multifunctional research lab might be handed over to the Energia Space Rocket Corporation for operation on May 21

MOSCOW, May 20. /TASS/. The European Robotic Arm (ERA) has been installed on Russia’s Nauka (Science) multifunctional laboratory module, which will travel to the International Space Station in July, the State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced on Thursday.

A source in the Russian space industry earlier told TASS that the Nauka multifunctional research lab might be handed over to the Energia Space Rocket Corporation for operation on May 21. The ERA and its attachable equipment were mounted on the Nauka module on May 19 with the work expected to be completed on May 20 following electrical testing, the source specified.

"In workshop No. 104 of the assembly and testing facility on Site No. 254, specialists of the Energia Space Rocket Corporation (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) and the European Space Agency carried out technological operations to finally install the European Robotic Arm (ERA) on the new module’s hull," the statement says.

The program of the Nauka multifunctional research module’s factory control tests is nearing completion at the Baikonur spaceport, Roscosmos said.

The Nauka multi-functional laboratory module is designated for implementing the Russian program of applied research and experiments. With the launch of the Nauka research module into operation, the Russian segment of the International Space Station will get additional space for equipping workplaces, storing cargoes and accommodating water and oxygen regeneration equipment.

The Nauka module will provide a second toilet for Russian cosmonauts (the first is located in the Zvezda module) and a room for a third crewmember. It will also use the European Robotic Arm (ERA) that will help perform some operations without spacewalks. The launch of the Nauka research module to the orbital outpost is scheduled for July 15.

https://tass.com/defense/1291907

The first mission of the Russian nuclear tug "Zeus" will take 50 months

source

MOSCOW, May 22. / TASS /. The first mission of the Zeus transport and energy module (TEM) will take 50 months. This is stated in the presentation of the executive director of Roscosmos for promising programs and science Alexander Bloshenko, presented in the framework of the educational marathon "New Knowledge".

"50 months is the total duration of the mission," the presentation says.

Bloshenko said that the first flight is scheduled for 2030. "We have designed it now. Together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, we are calculating the ballistics of this flight, payloads," the executive director explained.

According to Bloshenko, the mission will begin on Earth, then it is planned to fly to the Moon, where the spacecraft will separate, then there will be a gravitational maneuver near Venus, where the spacecraft will also separate, then it will fly towards Jupiter and its satellites.

In December last year, it became known that Roskosmos and KB Arsenal signed a contract for the development of a preliminary design of the nuclear tug Nuclon, which will be used for flights into deep space. The contract value is over 4.17 billion rubles. It was concluded on December 10. July 28, 2024 is indicated as the expiration date for the execution of the contract.

Roscosmos will submit a modified lunar program to the government in June

https://tass.ru/kosmos/11446435

The state corporation noted that a version of the program with a super-heavy launch vehicle is under consideration, an alternative option will involve a four-launch flight scheme using the Angara rocket

MOSCOW, May 22. / TASS /. Roscosmos plans to submit a revised lunar program to the government in June. This was announced by the executive director of Roskosmos for promising programs and science, Alexander Bloshenko, to journalists within the framework of the New Knowledge forum.

"We will submit a modified program for a four-start scheme to the government in June," Bloshenko said.

According to the executive director, a version of the lunar program with a super-heavy launch vehicle is currently under consideration; an alternative option will involve a four-launch flight to the moon using the Angara rocket.

At the end of 2020, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin noted that the presence of two launch complexes for Angara (in Vostochny and Plesetsk) from 2023 will make it possible to combine launches by assembling manned flight complexes in orbit. This will become the main tool for starting lunar exploration.

The first Russian manned expedition to the lunar surface is planned to be sent by 2030.

Nothing really new here, just confirmation of going round in circles we go as they try to make lunar aspirations fit a budget and schedule... back to A5-V for initial lunar expeditions, with a SHLV (Yenisei or Amur on steroids, as yet undecided) to follow?

Didn't they already submit a lunar program to government?

And another one before that?

You did not pay attention to other important things that Bloshenko said during his presentation.

PapaDragon wrote:

Scorpius wrote:You did not pay attention to other important things that Bloshenko said during his presentation....

They are wasting time with that reusable bullshit

Only thing that matters in chemical rocket department is Soyuz-5

Once that is up and running they will have the building blocks for super-heavy rocket and hopefully all this other nonsense will fade away into oblivion

Read carefully. These are the targets of the new rocket.

The payload capacity from Vostochny to low Earth orbit is 10.5 tons (a reusable version, a one-time version can bring 13.5 tons).
The flight reliability factor of 0.99 is higher than that of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle.
The preparation time for the launch is less than a day. The preparation of the launch vehicle at the launch complex is fully automated (for Soyuz rockets/Soyuz-2 the composition of the launch crew is about 300 people).
The number of parts and assembly units is ~2000 against ~ 4500 for Soyuz-2.
The labor intensity of production is 174 thousand working hours (against 220 thousand for Soyuz-2).
The cost of manufacturing the launch vehicle is 900 million rubles. The total cost of the launch is $ 22-27 million.

What is shown in this presentation is the next stage in the development of Russian space technology, so what does Elon Musk have to do with it?
This launch vehicle has nothing at all to do with SpaceX products other than the general concept of reusability. However, the concept of reusable launch vehicles was developed in the USSR 50 years ago. And again-where is there anything about Elon Musk?

Not sure if someone has already linked the presentation by Alexander Bloshenko (Roscosmos Executive Director for Long-Term Programs and Science) so here it is:



Damn, but I wish I could speak Russian....

Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with OneWeb satellites launched from Vostochny spaceport

VOSTOPCHNY SPACEPORT /Amur region/, May 28. /TASS/. A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 36 British OneWeb communications satellites has been launched from the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region, a TASS correspondent reported on Friday.

The Fregat booster carrying the communications satellites will separate from the rocket’s third stage nine minutes after the launch. The satellites will separate in several stages, with the entire process taking 3 hours and 51 minutes.

This was the seventh launch of OneWeb satellites and the fourth purely commercial launch from Vostochny. With these satellites in orbit, the OneWeb constellation will reach 218.

The launch was initially scheduled for May 27 but was postponed for a later date due to minor problems detected by automatic sensors. Later, Arianespace, the launch operator, said the carrier rocket’s electrical equipment needed to be replaced before the launch.

The first six OneWeb satellites were orbited by a Soyuz-ST carrier rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on February 28, 2019. Another 34 satellites were delivered into outer space on February 7, 2020 and the same amount on March 21 from the Baikonur spaceport.

On April 26, Director General of Russia's Roscosmos state space agency Dmitry Rogozin reported that 36 British OneWeb communication satellites, launched from the Vostochny spaceport on a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket, have been put into orbit.

OneWeb satellites were launched from the Vostochny spaceport for the first time in December 2020. A total of 36 space vehicles were put into orbit. Overall, the UK company intends to deliver around 600 satellites into a near-Earth orbit.

OneWeb’s renewed agreement with the French Arianespace that acts as the launch operator stipulates the lift-off of 16 Russian Soyuz carrier rockets from the Kourou, Vostochny and Baikonur spaceports in 2020-2022. Each launch can put between 34-36 OneWeb satellites into orbit.

By my reckoning that is 52 flights without a launch failure, or 59 if you count Soyuz from Kourou.

Last failure was the abort of Soyuz-MS10 back in 11 Oct 2018 that was fully attributable to human error during stack assembly.

There are ~18 launches planned for the rest of 2021 (including 2x Angara tests) so if all goes well the run might stretch out to 70/79 by years end

May this run of success continue to last, and hopefully the past reliablity issues can be finally put to bed and written off as the lagging-indicator of the space programs gutting by Yeltsin and his comprador band.  The program may not be exactly flushed with cash at the moment, but its a far cry from the old bad days when investment was zero and people didn't get paid for months while the Oligarchs stole every last kopek and stashed it in western banks...

I think people sometimes exaggerate things a lot.
The Soyuz 2 was a vast improvement over Soviet models.
There were investments in the Russian space sector even back then.
A lot of money was spent both on the Soyuz 2 upgrade program, the Proton-M upgrade program, and the new Soyuz capsules.
Angara took forever to develop, but it is there.
Of course you cannot compare the rate of development with Soviet times but that kind of effort was not sustainable.

PapaDragon wrote:
Price will be the same at best (and most definitely much bigger) so it will be just more time and money down the shitter just to soothe Trampoline Man's eternally bruised ego

He should have just kept his fat dumb mouth shut back when he exposed himself as a moron and this shitshow would have been avoided

I am always surprised of how a perfectly round statement of Д. О. Рогозин ,the famous "trampoline" one concerning USA's access to ISS if unfriendly measures would had been extended to Роскосмос, has been transformed in a kind of example of bad boasting by the low level mental contortionism of US propaganda machine.

It would had be justified if Space X ,after some weeks or few months since Д. О. Рогозин remarks in April 2014 ,would have put Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 Block 5 on the launch pad ready for bring an US crew on the ISS.

Reality instead is that since that perfectly justified remark in April 2014 passed …...SIX YEARS and HALF …...for the forst launch of an US vector and capsule toward ISS ,that in space related technology terms is and eternity.

Actually Д. Рогозин is not only a very very intelligent and competent manager and administrator, but it is also terribly efficient at bring managed Institutions in the right and this is exactly what is happening also at Роскосмос (and is probably the reason it is so often the target of self-embarrassing attacks).


Anyway in the last 4 years .....four, not six and half…... АО "КБ Химавтоматики" managed to complete the work of a new rocket engine with a duration more than 10 times greater than the most advanced existing today.

https://nauka.tass.ru/nauka/11510445

More news of the kind will follow in the next few months and years…..talking of competence and reaserch and development effciency in comparison with who celebrate as a victory to have reproduced after more than 10 years what the competitors had done 20 years before…...

To be fair if the US wanted to speed up the manned capsule effort they could have done it.
The original cargo Dragon capsule had most of what you needed for a basic manned capsule.

The Dragon V2 capsule has way more stringent specs. It has less black zones where you can't abort a launch than even the Soyuz.
I do think the Soyuz is more advanced in that it can actually land on terra firma.
Dragon V2 was also supposed to do this but NASA did not allow it because it feared the heat shield design would not be reliable enough.
The heat shield was supposed to be reused, while IIRC the Soyuz ejects the heat shield before firing the landing engines.

lancelot wrote:To be fair if the US wanted to speed up the manned capsule effort they could have done it.
The original cargo Dragon capsule had most of what you needed for a basic manned capsule.

The Dragon V2 capsule has way more stringent specs. It has less black zones where you can't abort a launch than even the Soyuz.
I do think the Soyuz is more advanced in that it can actually land on terra firma.
Dragon V2 was also supposed to do this but NASA did not allow it because it feared the heat shield design would not be reliable enough.
The heat shield was supposed to be reused, while IIRC the Soyuz ejects the heat shield before firing the landing engines.

IMHO the crewed Dragon is a death trap due to the absurd decision to integrate escape rockets within the crewed capsule rather than on a jettisonable tower.  I can't for the life of me understand how they could possibly risk assess the hazard of maintaining hypergolic propellents within 4 enclosures built into the walls of the capsule.  Heck, we've already seen one test capsule get blown to smithereens during a post-recovery Draco test, and that nicely illustrated the nature of the hazard.  On the other hand, these are the same fucking geniuses that decided to perform fuelling of the stack after the crew board the vehicle...  hardly keeping risks ALARP (as low as reasonably practical).

The only question in my mind is how missions will be flown until a crewed Dragon fails catastrophically and kills its crew. Its a case of when, not if.

Big_Gazza wrote:IMHO the crewed Dragon is a death trap due to the absurd decision to integrate escape rockets within the crewed capsule rather than on a jettisonable tower.  I can't for the life of me understand how they could possibly risk assess the hazard of maintaining hypergolic propellents within 4 enclosures built into the walls of the capsule.  Heck, we've already seen one test capsule get blown to smithereens during a post-recovery Draco test, and that nicely illustrated the nature of the hazard.  On the other hand, these are the same fucking geniuses that decided to perform fuelling of the stack after the crew board the vehicle...  hardly keeping risks ALARP (as low as reasonably practical).

The only question in my mind is how missions will be flown until a crewed Dragon fails catastrophically and kills its crew. Its a case of when, not if.

The idea is to cut cost and save weight. The decision to use those engines also reduces the black zones where you can't abort.

The escape tower needs to be ejected some time after takeoff. After that there is a time period where aborting is pretty much impossible.

SpaceX has no experience with solid rockets or the facilities to produce them.
Outsourcing the solid rockets in the escape tower would be cost prohibitive. Try reading about the cost of the escape tower on the Orion capsule for example.
Using liquid engines in this configuration means you can reuse them together with the capsule.

It was supposed to save weight because you could basically use the same engines and fuel you would use in the escape tower for the propulsive landing.

For what it's worth the Soviet Union had plans to make a Zarya capsule that was to be launched on the Zenit rocket as a replacement for Soyuz which used a similar system.
http://www.astronautix.com/z/zarya.html

The main difference Dragon V2 has is it has a parachute large enough to brake the capsule even without propulsive landing.

I agree that having a hygroscopic propellant like hydrazine in a vehicle which does water landings is a disaster waiting to happen though.

For what it's worth the Shuttle also used hypergolics in the OMS/RCS system and AFAIK it never caused a major problem.
Although it made upkeep of the Shuttle hideously expensive because of the complex ground handling required to handle the fuel.

The tower is a non issue. Getting rid of it will not reduce the launch costs per kg enough to notice. And all escape modules have an altitude
limit. It does not matter if the thrusters are on a tower or on the crew capsule. Where is there any hint of integration being somehow more
flexible? Only if it means more fuel can be supplied to the thrusters.

The Challenger Space Shuttle accident underscores the limits. We just are not advanced enough to have arbitrary return ability. When you
get on a rocket, you takes your chances.

kvs wrote:The tower is a non issue.   Getting rid of it will not reduce the launch costs per kg enough to notice.   And all escape modules have an altitude
limit.   It does not matter if the thrusters are on a tower or on the crew capsule.   Where is there any hint of integration being somehow more
flexible?  Only if it means more fuel can be supplied to the thrusters.  

The Challenger Space Shuttle accident underscores the limits.   We just are not advanced enough to have arbitrary return ability.   When you
get on a rocket, you takes your chances.

Perhaps this(arbitrary return ability)is an area in which the russian space program can focus on because its for the betterment of humanity instead of for dickwaving. How about creating the worlds first space rescue service. Is an astronaut tumbling in space and suffocating. Is your space station burning down? Did your return capsule lose all control? Call the russians.

Russian cosmonauts Novitsky and Dubrov made a spacewalk on the ISS

3000 second burn time, so basically what was for LEO now all becomes GEO payloads? what is the current Soyuz payloads being used for LEO? Can they just burn the fuel rate more by 10 times the amount for more weight for LEO? I am still impressed.

If the engine lasts longer it means they can reuse it.

Musk fanbois talk like Space X is actually running reusable launchers on a daily basis. I have not seen any evidence of a single engine in their possession
that has a 3000 (50 minute) burn durability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_rocket_engines

Also, there are no direct launches into GEO orbit. Rockets deliver the payload to LEO from where it is slowly elevated to GEO by onboard thrusters.
A 3000 second duration burn would require a proportionate scaling in the fuel amount. We are talking about a rocket bigger than the Saturn V.

thegopnik wrote:3000 second burn time, so basically what was for LEO now all becomes GEO payloads? what is the current Soyuz payloads being used for LEO? Can they just burn the fuel rate more by 10 times the amount for more weight for LEO? I am still impressed.

Probably, it was a deforced version of the RD-0124, which is being developed within the framework of the Soyuz-2M program. The idea is to provide multiple activation of the third stage of the Soyuz ,having the ability to launch satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit without the use of the Fregat upper stage. Thus, the cost of launching 2-2.5 tons into a sun-synchronous orbit will be about $ 30 million.

https://www.roscosmos.ru/31332/
Dmitry Rogozin's interview for TASS

lancelot wrote:
Roscosmos hasn't launched any new rocket type since either!
If you don't innovate, sure, you'll have way less chances of failures.

Angara-A5 was launched in December 2020.
Is it no longer new enough for you?

The fraction of Proton launches versus Soyuz launches has also gone down and Soyuz has historically been a more reliable rocket.
Is this a good thing?

These are NO things if you started looking at it without context. Proton-M cannot fly after 2025, as the agreement with Kazkhakhstan on the operation of this type of rocket expires.

Not when Proton has conceded the commercial satellite launch segment it had with International Launch Services (ILS) to Falcon 9.

You must bring here some data that supports your statements, or do not use unsubstantiated statements. The space launch market? If this market existed, no commercial launch from 1990 to 2012 would have been carried out on any carrier rocket other than Russian ones. However, there were many rocket launches that cost many times more than a Proton, Zenith, or Soyuz launch. In addition, there is no struggle for the market. The Americans announced a complete ban on satellite launches on Russian missiles. Do you consider these competitive market methods?

lancelot wrote:

With regards to US bans the Russian space industry lost the segment way before the bans were put into place. If anyone should complain about US bans it would be the Chinese.
Yet the Chinese managed to surpass both the US and Russia in number of launches.

You complain about SpaceX getting state subsidies. I am sure Russian launch providers get zero money from the Russian military industrial complex then.
How many of the launches Proton and Soyuz made were military launches? Even NASA paid for several Soyuz launches.

Lancelot the problem is not in the funds allocated for military launches, it is totally obvious that the services would be paid anywhere on this planet, the problem instead lie in the horribly inflated financiary resources allocated by US Government for Space X military launches - literally multiples of the times the cost/kg of theirs commercial payload….-.

This represent an obvious and very clear example of unlawful dumping practice aimed at reduce artificially the costs of commercial launches of Space X under the level of its international competitors, so to attempt to put them outside the market.

Practically Space X launch commercial payloads at huge losses that are continually compensated by the flux of those "masked" aids through military launches; if Space X would ever acquire a position of monopoly (because its competitors would stop to offer the same services cause the lack of foreign orders and, therefore, the imposibility to invest in R&D) the prices of Space X will suddenly skyrocket to the stars, but none will find at this point an alternative option.

Actually Д. Рогозин managed in a very reduced amount of time to:

1) Epurate majority of Роскосмос holdings and subsidiaries from corrupt and, even worse, treacherous personel (a truly terrible blow to foreign intelligence agencies and theirs capability to collect informations about domestic programs and technical details about innovative solutions)
2) Stabilize the financiary situation and restructure the loan plan of several Institutions in dire state related to space technology, rocket science and commercial and military launches.  
3) Like for its past (it was always one of its obsession) it has managed to integrate the research and development chain, eliminating any overposition of several Institutions on the same problem and prevent specialists of subsidiaries bureaux to find themselves forced towork on fields that are historically outside of theirs optimum area of competence, moreover it has prevented the early interruption of cardinal programs on the basis on series of failures in the validation phase when data coming from technologyu demonstration phase would appear grounded and promising; in the recent past its persuaded military high command and supreme commander to continue two programs that would had been otherwise interrupted and that today represent technological primacy at planetary level and other three that are still in development and validation phases. The same is happening at Роскосмос.
4) It has been the force behind the graudal abandoning of collaboration with foreign agencies on a not equal terms and the beginning of exclusively domestic programs that would allow to capitalize the fruit of the efforts in innovative scientifical acquisitions without immediately surrending them to foreign specialists.,

In brief, since its work at OTAN, Д. Рогозин has understood perfectly the mindset, propaganda system and terms of relations with western powers and even more it has perfectly realized what they are afraid for and what they attempt to prevent at any cost in terms of domestic development and has ,sicne then, attempted to lead its managed sectors exactly in those directions.[/quote]