Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #4

Mir was a target for sure. If you want to see an example of the sort of butthurt propaganda against it watch the moronic cartoon Farscape episode.

I do not see much technological surge over the last 30 years that would make permanent space station modules possible. All of them are going to
age and will have to be sunk in the ocean. Mir could have lasted for 25 years. The future Russian space station will be a success if its modules
last 25 years. Make new ones to replace the old ones.

Sokol-M spacesuits for the Orel spacecraft

I can't believe that nobody bothered to make more than one photo of these new suits...

So, I think it's time. In a private conversation, an employee of one of the enterprises of Roscosmos indirectly confirmed that a version of sabotage is not excluded in the situation with Science. I can't name names, I'm not an expert or an insider. So this is just a private opinion. But in the situation with the MLM module, there were too many incomprehensible failures.

Well, even with the failures, it was a success that module.

But as said by papa, they need security cameras and some kind of oversight by intelligence services of the programming side.

A single-turn flight scheme to the ISS can be worked out at the launch of Progress MS-20. 

A single-turn flight scheme (about 2 hours) on the ISS can be tested for the first time when launching the Progress MS-20 cargo ship in the case of regular testing of its elements as part of the launches of the previous two "trucks". This was reported to TASS by the head of the ballistics department of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (part of Roscosmos), Rafail Murtazin.

"Formally, it turns out that two more cargoships (Progress MS-18 and Progress MS-19) will be tested, if it goes well, on the third (Progress MS-20) it would be possible to make a single - turn scheme," Murtazin said.

According to the ballistics expert, during the Progress MS-17 flight, launched on June 30 from Baikonur, the exit to a coelliptical orbit, necessary for a single-turn approach scheme, was worked out. The ship was on it for 50 minutes.

"The next cargoship will also fly on a two-day schedule. We will continue working on it: after the first two pulses, we will fly in a coelliptic orbit (after the first day), after another day we will move to another coelliptic orbit, so that after the first and after the second we can understand with what accuracy the coelliptic orbit is formed and the rate of its degradation" – he said.

If this stage is successfully worked out and with the approval of Roscosmos, Murtazin explained, the final part of the flight can be tested. Currently, autonomous rendezvous takes almost one turn, so it needs to be reduced to 20-25 minutes. "In fact, in this area,somewhere from a distance of 2-2. 5 km, speed damping relative to the ISS will be performed" – he added.

Single-turn scheme

In April 2019, RSC Energia developed a single-turn approach scheme for spacecraft approaching the ISS, and its elements were tested for the first time during the Progress MS-17 spacecraft flight. Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin told reporters that a single-turn flight scheme to the ISS can be tested in 2022.

Raphael Murtazin, head of the Ballistics Department at RSC Energia, told TASS that the single-turn scheme assumes that after launching with two pulses, the ship will be in a coelliptical orbit, geometrically similar to the ISS orbit. With this approach, when the observation angle of the station is 23 degrees from the ship, the point of execution of the optimal pulse that leads the ship to the station's vicinity in half a turn is unambiguously determined.

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Why explain with sabotage what you can easily describe instead with incompetence. Occam's razor.

I can very easily imagine a programming error that would lead to the Nauka firing its engines when its connected to the ISS. Maybe it did its own calculations for the necessary inclination and that happened to be out of alignment with the ISS's one. Maybe they sent a bunch of commands earlier on the Nauka trying to engage its engines when it was still on the way to rendevous, commands that were postponed then by the onboard system but then suddenly activated when the Nauka docked and all of its subsystems started interfacing with the ISS.
Having worked in software development for years, I can tell you that even with all the best testers, Q&A process in the world, even doing all the maths and going through all the possibilities - bugs are pretty much unavoidable when it comes to complex systems. There will be conditions, rules, etc... written earlier that are then suddenly fired in situations you did not anticipate, as you add to the system or link it to another one. You will also get emergent behaviors of a sort, seemingly simple code and routines by themselves but leading to quite unexpected behavior when they operate together.
This goes for pretty much any software.
For something as critical as space systems, you should build it so that that there are always overrides, redundancies and limitations to the damage that any mistaken command or bug can do. That's basically your main defense.

Really you don't need sabotage to explain this
It all fits perfectly into Roscosmos's modus operandi to date

But I suspect that such situations happen often enough with any space agency. It's really about the redundancies built in and the speed and skill with which ground control is able to correct the situation that counts.
They got the module there, and managed to recover from the very last drama that happened after the docking as well. This is already a big achievement.

oh, this conversation happened before Nauka docked with the ISS, besides, the incident with the engine turned on did not threaten the state of the ISS (despite the fact that a bunch of morons on the NASA forum are now loudly screaming about the opposite). So we were talking about earlier failures, including the situation with the fuel system.

GarryB wrote:And they still really have no idea what happened with the Skripals...

Actually its quite obvious.  Skripal had tired of life in UK and wanted to return home to see family.  Russian gov agreed and his daughter was used as the go-between to convey messages.

I think Skripal had finally agreed and was going to "do a bunk" when UK spooks got wind of it.  Skripal and his daughter went to the pub and celebrated his soon-to-be free status, and had a celebratory drink including a toast which they photographed (what was he toasting? His imminent turn home methinks).

I think the two "assassins" were actually there on stand-by, handy and available if needed to assist with Skripal making a break.

Anyhow, the spooks got wind of it (probably the local guy charged with shadowing Skripal) and acting quickly, they took out the the Skripals with an aerosol incapacitating agent called BZ (which was subsequently detected by the Swiss lab and the info was released in the public report before authorities could intervene.  Public hospital emerg staff thought they had suffered from Fentanyl poisoning and CW were never considered until government hacks were mobilised and got involved and took over proceedings.

Blaming Russia and inventing this Novichok BS is just a extra layer on the stupid-shit cake. Morons in Whitehall couldn't resist an opportunity to manufacture fake outrage, but they fecked up the narrative and made it nonsensical and unbelievable to anyone with a half allotment of brain cells.

Where are the Skripals now?  Where is the daughter who is a Russian citizen whom the UK has no rights to detain?  Why has the media not asked these obvious questions?  Clearly it is not just the US that maintains black prisons for off-the-books illegal detentions...  

Edit: The interesting question is how did a greatly-weakened Novichok-esque concoction end up in a perfume bottle in a rubbish bin to be picked up by a pair of down-and-outs? I think the bottle in question was used to plant traces of the CW agent (manufactured in Porton Downs) around the town so it could be "detected" (plain clothes agent carrying a perfume bottle to avoid notice). For some inexplicable reason it ended up in the rubbish - maybe the bottle was thrown away carelessly, or maybe it was dropped accidently and picked up by someone else who disposed of it not knowing its contents.

Attempting to fob off the Nauka "problems" as Russian incompetence is simple BS. There were no problems only prepared narratives
of problems. The notion that Nauka could be recovered from a failed orbit insertion and then have spare fuel to tilt the ISS is just
retarded. What we had was a lot of sabotage effort that was stopped and none of the "crises" en route to the ISS happened. The
only incident that was "successfully" staged was the thruster burn after docking.

BTW, RT referred to the incident as the Nauka crashing into the ISS. These morons did not bother watching the docking video.
A thruster burn after docking is not a crash.

The fail with Nauka was the NATzO sabotage effort.

As I said, RT is the fucking most stupid news agency around, next to MSNBC, CNN and BBC

Moron insisted on launching Nauka now because a lot of components on it were reaching it's time limit for launch after production which is 20 years

Logical course of action would have been to scrap the whole thing because it's a disaster waiting to happen but Moron's ego was more precious than lives of people onboard

And let's not forget that they are not out of the woods yet not even by a long shot, they still need to pray to God that it doesn't kill everyone up there during remainder of it's "service life"

They probably have entire warehouse full of folders with pre-written "sabotage" excuses ready to be pulled out

We are in hope and pray zone now

Now it's not only Russia that has a motivation to pull out of ISS, nobody will want to risk astronaut lives on that deathtrap

Another reason why new space station must be fast tracked

PapaDragon wrote:
Moron insisted on launching Nauka now because a lot of components on it were reaching it's time limit for launch after production which is 20 years

..

Now it's not only Russia that has a motivation to pull out of ISS, nobody will want to risk astronaut lives on that deathtrap

Another reason why new space station must be fast tracked

There is nothing left in Nauka that could have an expiration date expiring in the near future. Almost all possible filling was replaced there-except for the frame and the fuel system. Everything else is new there. To call the module a "rusty scrap" - leave it to the morons from Russophobic resources. The Science module is younger than JWST. According to the results of the launch to the ISS, we have only two confirmed emergency situations, both of which are related to the propulsion system control system.
The reality is that the specialists of Roscosmos have coped with a difficult situation that no one on Earth is simply able to get to. No one except Russia launches autonomous 23-ton modules to the ISS.

Scorpius wrote:...The reality is that the specialists of Roscosmos have coped with a difficult situation...

Their method of coping is to blame "saboteurs" and "haters" for their constant fuckups

They squeezed by on blind luck but instead of shutting the f*ck up and knowing when to walk away from the table they doubled down on old bullshit excuses

They had a way out but still they opted to go full retard yet again

Serbia is the bestest space power.

New X-ray pulsar discovered. 

Using the ART-XC and eROSITA telescopes installed on board the Spektr-Roentgen-Gamma satellite, an international team of astronomers has discovered a new pulsar. This newly discovered object, designated SRGA J204318.2+443815, turned out to be a long-period, dim X-ray pulsar located in a distant binary system.

X-ray pulsars are sources that show stable periodic variations in the intensity of X-ray radiation. These objects consist of a magnetized neutron star orbited by a normal companion star. In such binary systems, X-rays are generated by the release of gravitational potential energy during accretion of material from a massive companion star. X-ray pulsars are among the brightest X-ray objects in the sky.

In a new study, a team led by Alexander Lutovinov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences reports the discovery of another X-ray pulsar. Using the ART-XC telescope, scientists discovered a relatively bright X-ray object in November 2020, at a distance of approximately 26,000 light-years from Earth.

Subsequent observations revealed pulsations of the SRGA J204318.2+443815 object with a period of approximately 742 seconds. The source has a bolometric luminosity of 400 decillion ergs per second.

According to the authors, the data obtained indicate that the object SRGA J204318. 2+443815 is a stable low-luminosity X-ray pulsar located in a distant binary system. The pulsar's companion is a star of the Be spectral class. Astronomers believe that the source SRGA J204318.2+443815 may be a new member of the subclass of stable low-luminosity X-ray binary systems containing a Be-class star (BeXRB systems), which are presumably accreting from a "cold" accretion disk.

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Work continues on the Nauka module.

Integration of the multi-purpose laboratory module Nauka with the Russian segment of the ISS continues in active mode on board the International Space Station. During the week, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov will carry out work on unloading the module and dismantling the equipment that arrived on it.

In addition, the Russian crew members of the 65th long-term expedition are beginning to prepare for the upcoming spacewalks. The next ones are tentatively scheduled for September 2 and 8, 2021. They will focus on the integration of the new Nauka module on the exterior of the International Space Station.

The integration of the new module into the station itself will take more than six months and will require about ten spacewalks by Russian cosmonauts. During this period, it is necessary to extend cable networks and pipelines, install means of securing large-sized objects, as well as the airlock chamber and radiation heat exchanger, which are currently located on the Rassvet small research module.

The next operation related to the Nauka module is the docking of the Yu.A. Gagarin manned transport spacecraft (Soyuz MS-18). According to preliminary data from the ballistics and navigation support service of the TsNIIMash Mission Control Center (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation), the ship's undocking from the Rassvet module and docking with Nauka are scheduled for September 28, 2021. Soyuz MS-18 will release the docking station for the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch on October 5.

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Now the russians building pipelines in space! Nuland will freak out!

kvs wrote:Serbia is the bestest space power.

Nowhere near Canada, I mean they worked hard for 40 years to automate handjbos

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

miketheterrible wrote:As I said, RT is the fucking most stupid news agency around, next to MSNBC, CNN and BBC

The only thing about RT that is Russian is the name of the outlet. Its essentially a US outlet, staffed with Muricans (albeit mostly anti-establishment ones), and is subject to many of the usual foibles of western MSM - eg acquiescence to LGBT ideology and censorship of any and all views critical of Israel including fervent censorship of any user comments that are anti-Zionist.

I like their anti-establishment proclivities and willingness to address stories that our corrupt MSM work so hard to supress, and I used to enjoy commenting, but now ((they)) exercise their "rod of iron" against us lowly goyim and they have shitted it all up.

Russia to sign agreements with four countries to set up observatory. 

Russia is preparing to sign intergovernmental agreements with China, South Korea, France and Italy on their participation in the creation of the Spektr-M astrophysical space observatory (the Millimetron project), Larisa Likhacheva, Deputy Director of the Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RIA Novosti.

"At the moment, cooperation with China, South Korea, France and Italy is being formalized at the state level, that is, relevant intergovernmental agreements are being prepared for signing, which will specify the specific role of each country participating in the project on the basis of previously reached agreements" – she said.

According to her, over the past two years, interest in the Millimetron project from the international community has grown significantly.
"This is also due to the success in creating the observatory and the fact that a large foreign project SPICA, which to some extent was competing for Millimetron, was closed" – Likhacheva explained.

She believes that the list of countries will continue to expand.

"Recently, colleagues from Spain became interested in the project - this is the Spanish National Observatory and the Yebes Observatory" – the scientist added.

Earlier, Likhacheva told RIA Novosti that South Korea can help the project with a network of ground-based millimeter-wave antennas and heterodyne receivers with a broadband mixer, China and the cooperation of scientists from France, Sweden and the Netherlands - matrix receivers, Italy - a long-wave matrix spectrometer.

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Scientist "airborne" and greenery on an industrial scale. How Nauka will change life on the ISS. 

On July 29, the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module (MLM) docked to the International Space Station (ISS), which will expand the Russian segment and open up new opportunities for performing experiments in orbit. A day later, cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov opened the hatches and moved to the module, and on August 2, they began unloading operations.

In an interview with TASS, the head of the Laboratory for the development and implementation of biomedical programs at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBI) RAS Yuri Smirnov told about what experiments will be conducted in the new module and on its external surface, how the Russian scientific program on the ISS will change, as well as about the possible participation of scientists in conducting experiments in space.

For the purity of experiments
According to Smirnov, one of the main advantages of the "Nauka" module is the appearance of a specialized place for conducting experiments, which, in turn, will affect their quality.

"Now most of the research takes place in the Zvezda service module, the same place where service operations and physical training are performed. Naturally, there is always a risk that astronauts will interfere with each other when performing work. Now there is a module-laboratory, where all the scientific equipment will be located, astronauts will be able to go there and do research, without risking being under any external influence" – he said.

The inclusion of MLM in the ISS will increase the Russian crew to three people and increase the time required to complete the scientific program. As a result, this will lead to the implementation of more experiments on board, the expert is convinced.

Japanese quail and salad

Currently, the IBMP has 13 experiments in various stages of preparation for implementation on the ISS, nine of which will be performed in the "Nauka" module. The list of studies is constantly updated. As the expert explained, specialists in various fields of knowledge still have the opportunity to write an application, send it to TsNIIMash (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation), and after carrying out the necessary expertise, get into the long-term program of targeted work on the International Space Station.

According to the head of the Institute's laboratory, one of the most long-awaited studies in orbit will be the Quail experiment. It involves the delivery of Japanese quail eggs to the ISS.

The purpose of the experiment is to study the development of an embryo in zero gravity and artificial gravity on the ISS. The scientific equipment is an incubator, some of the eggs will simply be incubated in space flight, and some will be placed in a centrifuge inside the incubator. 

Periodically, astronauts will perform chemical fixation of eggs in a glove box, and then send them to Earth for study by specialists. The first stage of the IBMP experiment is planned to start in 2022. The second stage involves keeping the quail population in orbit. "The time frame for it is still unknown, because it requires the development of scientific equipment" – Smirnov explained.

Experiments with rodents and other animals of the same level of development are not planned yet. At the same time, IMBP expects to start growing lettuce on the ISS on an "industrial scale". The "Vitacycle-T" experiment is the creation of a greenhouse that allows you to grow plants on an industrial scale" – said the head of the laboratory.

A space greenhouse that resembles a snail in profile will be delivered to the ISS. "With a certain frequency, the cosmonaut puts a strip of seeds in the greenhouse. Then he scrolls the reel, after some time lays the next strip. Every certain period of time, an astronaut can harvest a crop. In the first experiment, for example, Peking cabbage will be grown" – Smirnov explained.

Some of the plants will be sent to Earth for research. "Naturally, no one will prohibit astronauts from using the resulting crop grown during a space flight for food" – the expert stressed. In the future, astronauts will also be able to plant cereals, legumes, and dwarf tomatoes.

A trap in outer space

New IBMP experiments will take place not only inside the station, but also on its external surface. One of these studies is "Biorisk", in which experts expect to obtain new data on possible changes in bacteria and fungi, as well as in various biological test objects (plant seeds, insect larvae and eggs, fish eggs) during space flight.

Now, said Smirnov, IMBP together with the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (part of the state Corporation Roscosmos) is considering the placement of equipment delivered to the ISS on the outer surface of the station.

In addition to studying the impact of the space environment on biological objects, experts expect to catch microorganisms in open space as part of dust particles on the ISS flight path. For this purpose, the "Trap" experiment was developed. "Its goal is to capture micrometeorites, cosmic dust. There may be detected organic and inorganic compounds, as well as microorganisms" – suggested Smirnov.

According to the head of the laboratory, work on the outer side of the station will be greatly simplified by the ERA manipulator, which arrived on the ISS together with Nauka. "In fact, using a manipulator, we can remove equipment from the outer surface of the station, transfer it to the airlock, and the crew, without going into outer space, can pick up samples from there and send them to Earth" – the expert said, recalling that preparing for a spacewalk usually takes a long time.

Scientist "airborne"

Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin, during a speech at the Summer Space School in early August, spoke about the idea of sending young scientists to the ISS so that they can independently conduct research. According to the head of the state corporation, this will be possible if the experiment on rapid preparation for space flight is successful.

In response to the question whether the IMBP creates a kind of scientific "airborne" for flights to the ISS, Smirnov said that this idea is being discussed. "This question was mentioned. This is a very interesting idea. We are considering the possibility of creating a group of specialists who can conduct research that can only be performed by a professional, in the conditions of space flight" – said the head of the laboratory.

The expert recalled that some cosmonauts worked or are working in the IMBP, among them — Oleg Kotov, Valery Polyakov, Sergey Ryazansky and others. According to Smirnov, many young active employees of the Institute dream of becoming cosmonauts. The head of the laboratory is convinced that the presence of specialized specialists in the cosmonaut squad (Roscosmos or the Academy of Sciences) would be very useful.

Accelerated training of narrow specialists for spaceflight will allow us to include experiments that can only be performed by a person with a specialized education. For example, some invasive techniques or biological experiments that require specialized skills. In principle, it can change the scientific program. 

Not only "Science"

Some IBMP experiments cannot be performed in Nauka because they require a treadmill (DB-2) installed in the Zvezda service module. One of them — a "Virtual trainer" - will allow you to develop a kind of physical training consultant.

"Today, ground specialists analyze the results of physical training of astronauts, and in the future we plan to create a system that includes, among other things, software that will allow analyzing the results of the previous training of an astronaut and taking into account the peculiarities of his physiology, plan training for the next period" – the expert explained.

Such a system, the head of the laboratory noted, will be useful during flights to deep space, when operational communication between the crew and ground specialists will be difficult. Another study, the results of which will help in preparing for such expeditions, is "Motocard — 2". "Now the amount of axial load (attraction) to the treadmill when training is performed is about 60-80% of the cosmonaut's body weight. The experiment is to create a level of attraction that simulates the level of gravity in the conditions of the Moon and Mars, and to study the biomechanics of a person in an altered gravity" – said Smirnov. It is planned to start conducting the experiment in 2024, and before that, the IMBP will have to develop scientific equipment and work out the methodology on Earth.

According to Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin, the Nauka module is now 50% ready for life. For its full integration into the Russian segment of the ISS, about ten spacewalks will be required — the first of them are already scheduled for September 2 and 8. In general, the head of the state corporation specified earlier, MLM will increase the number of experiments performed in orbit by 2.5 times.

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Some new about Ukrainian space technologies (Is it still alive? ) 

Ukraine plans to launch Cyclone rocket in Canada in 2022.

Ukrainian specialists plan to launch a Cyclone-4M rocket from Canada next year. This was stated by the head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine Volodymyr Taftay.

"Next year we plan to launch a Cyclone-4M rocket in Canada" – he said in an interview with the Ukrainian news agency.UNN. Taftay added that Ukraine has a number of projects that are being actively worked on. "I hope that we will be able to implement them in the near future," the head of the agency said.

Earlier, Canadian media reported that Cyclone-4M will launch from the Canso cosmodrome in Nova Scotia in 2023.

The project of a two-stage medium-class space launch vehicle "Cyclone-4" has been developed by Ukraine in cooperation with Brazil since 2004. Its first launch was expected from the Brazilian Alcantara cosmodrome no later than 2010, but this period was regularly postponed to a later date. In 2015, Brazil withdrew from the project.

The Cyclone-4M rocket is a development of the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye design Bureau. According to the designers, Zyklon-4M will be able to put 3.7 thousand kg of cargo into an orbit with a height of 450 km or 3 thousand kg into an orbit of 1,200 km.

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The Keldysh Center expressed its readiness to help solve the problems of Starliner. 

The Keldysh Research Center (part of Roscosmos) is ready to assist Boeing in solving the problems of the Starliner spacecraft. This was announced to TASS on Tuesday by the company's General Director Vladimir Koshlakov.

"We are well aware of the level of development of the American engine industry, we are well aware of all their developments, so if they apply, we will be ready to help" – Koshlakov said.

According to the Director General of the Center Keldysh, the corresponding order was given by the Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.

"The Keldysh Center is a leading organization of the rocket and space industry in the field of rocket engine building. In fact, we are engaged in all types of rocket engines that only exist" – Koshlakov said.

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