Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #4

kvs wrote:The SHLV is not the Angara since it has multiple nozzles in the boosters.  The Angara derivative in the slide you posted in another thread is
shown with single nozzle modules.

I do not know that this thing is supposed to be.   It is rendered as a single nozzle core stage surrounded by what looks like RD-171MV
equipped boosters.   Maybe just some token graphic and not any actual SHLV.

 

Yes, I noticed that, neither Yenisei nor Angara (a 4-man crewed transport to lunar orbit is beyond the ability of even A-5V). I'm thinking that it might represent a methalox-based SHLV using Amur-derived technologies currently under development?

What does the text say? I'm not a Russian speaker/reader and my translations are laborious kindergarten-grade efforts that move at glacial speeds, but I'll get around to deciphering the text later, maybe tomorrow.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Yes, I noticed that, neither Yenisei nor Angara (a 4-man crewed transport to lunar orbit is beyond the ability of even A-5V).  I'm thinking that it might represent a methalox-based SHLV using Amur-derived technologies currently under development?  

What does the text say? I'm not a Russian speaker/reader and my translations are laborious kindergarten-grade efforts that move at glacial speeds, but I'll get around to deciphering the text later, maybe tomorrow.

It says nothing about the SHLV. It is referring to it being an SHLV in the title but there are no labels. The rest is just component and mission stage
information that is not even needed to explain the slide.

I am doubting it is the methalox rocket since the engines for that are not even in production and the Yanisei is going to arrive earlier. The Zenit
replacement can be assembled today.

Scorpius wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:Its not often that a space launch is scheduled that I earnestly wish to fail, but the Ukropi Sich-2-30 is such a mission. Due to be launched on 13 Jan from a F9, I'm hoping to hear about the shoddy piece of junk failing in orbit within a day or two...     Screw these maggots.  Space is no place for hardware from a Nazi-controlled police state...

it looks like your wish has been fulfilled. It looks like the satellite is lost.

Can you share a source which mentions the satellite's loss?

magnumcromagnon wrote:

owais.usmani wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:Its not often that a space launch is scheduled that I earnestly wish to fail, but the Ukropi Sich-2-30 is such a mission. Due to be launched on 13 Jan from a F9, I'm hoping to hear about the shoddy piece of junk failing in orbit within a day or two...     Screw these maggots.  Space is no place for hardware from a Nazi-controlled police state...

it looks like your wish has been fulfilled. It looks like the satellite is lost.

Can you share a source which mentions the satellite's loss?

In Kiev, they did not rule out the loss of the Sich-2-30 satellite launched into orbit

On the downside, we have one less test target for Peresvet.  Would have been nice to burn out its sensors with a sustained blast and then feign total ignorance

edit: RIA Novosti is reporting the same. source. Happy days

Big_Gazza wrote:
Note the dual-SHLV launch mission for a 4-man crew to the lunar surface. Doesn't look like Soyuz-5 based Yenisei...

It is very clearly. Those side boosters are the first stages to be used by Soyuz-5 using the RD-171MV engine.

owais.usmani wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:
Note the dual-SHLV launch mission for a 4-man crew to the lunar surface. Doesn't look like Soyuz-5 based Yenisei...

It is very clearly. Those side boosters are the first stages to be used by Soyuz-5 using the RD-171MV engine.

Ah yes, I've had a closer look and I think you're right.  I think it just didn't mesh with my mental picture of Yenisei when posting late last night, especially as it looked like a central core and 2x strap-on boosters, rather than 5-6 as how Yenisei/Don is usually shown.

The depiction in that slide is quite close to the following prelim rendition of Yenisei from ~2017, just with some variation in the u/s.

Why would it use a two-nozzle (RD-181) engine for the core module? That does not make any sense. I do not see a need for
a slower burn which just requires more fuel and results in less payload. This heterogeneous approach also defeats the concept
of a URM. It makes more sense to use identical modules. The two-nozzle module would have no other utility than for this SHLV.

kvs wrote:Why would it use a two-nozzle (RD-181) engine for the core module?   That does not make any sense.  I do not see a need for
a slower burn which just requires more fuel and results in less payload.   This heterogeneous approach also defeats the concept
of a URM.  It makes more sense to use identical modules.   The two-nozzle module would have no other utility than for this SHLV.

I assume its so that the central core can be ignited on the ground along with the strap-ons, and then burn for longer ie past the point of strap-on release, without the need for deep throttling (the propellent inventory of the core is the same as the boosters). You wouldn't get any benefit of having a 4-chamber engine, and you'd be carrying extra weight and wasting money. Switching to a 2-chamber engine looks to be an efficiency measure.

In any case, the central core will always be a slightly different build to the strap-ons, even if they are a "common" URM design. Using a different engine (yet of the same design family) shouldn't add any significant complexity.

My point was that any slower burn adds cost. The most efficient rocket is a shell shot from a giant gun. Obviously that
is not practical. I just don't see any need for the center module to burn longer. Once the first stage cluster burns out
the second stage ignites with no "shock" transition. The speed of the second stage is higher if all first stage modules burn
as fast as possible. Somebody is hung up on the concept of boosters. There are no boosters in the URM, the cluster is
the first stage.

The weight difference between the RD-171 and RD-181 would not override the benefit of reaching a higher initial speed
for the second stage.

Anyway, I assume they did detailed modeling of what they want from the SHLV. Maybe they see some value in this configuration.

China and Russia may sign an agreement on the creation of a lunar station before the end of the year

source

BEIJING, January 28. /TASS/. An intergovernmental agreement between Russia and China on cooperation in the creation of a lunar station can be signed before the end of the year. This was announced on Friday at a press conference by Deputy Head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Wu Yanhua.

"Currently, intergovernmental consultations between China and the Russian Federation on the issue of an agreement on the establishment of the International Scientific Lunar Station are in full swing," he said. "Basically, the parties have reached a consensus. It is quite possible that it (the agreement) can be signed as soon as possible this year," Wu Yanhua said.

On Tuesday, Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov said that an intergovernmental agreement between Russia and China on cooperation in building a lunar station is almost ready and could be signed soon.

Roscosmos and CNSA in June 2021, as part of the Global Conference on Space Research (GLEX-2021), presented a roadmap for the International Scientific Lunar Station. According to the information provided, the construction of the station should be fully completed by 2035. From 2026 to 2030, two missions are planned to develop technologies for landing and delivering cargo, as well as returning samples of lunar rock to Earth. From 2031 to 2035, the parties will deploy infrastructure in orbit and on the surface of the Moon, including communications systems, as well as electrical power, research and other equipment.

This really is excellent news, looking forward to watching the ink dry

Energomash supplied the RD-171MV engine for testing as part of the Soyuz-5 first stage

source

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. NPO Energomash handed over the first RD-171MV engine to the Progress Rocket and Space Center last year for testing. Igor Arbuzov, general director of NPO Energomash, announced this.

"In 2021, we conducted the first tests of the RD-171MV engine designed for the promising Soyuz-5 rocket. All these tests were successful. <...> In 2021, the first engine was delivered for bench tests as part of a stage," Arbuzov said on the air of Roscosmos TV .

Big_Gazza wrote:

If you take a closer look you'll notice that all 4 main modules are modifications of upcoming NEM module which is very smart move

Keeping them standardized (and quickly produced) is better than making one-offs like now

PapaDragon wrote:If you take a closer look you'll notice that all 4 main modules are modifications of upcoming NEM module which is very smart move

Keeping them standardized (and quickly produced) is better than making one-offs like now

Yes, and thankfully with the deployment of Nauka, the use of ancient DOS modules from Soviet times has been discontinued. No more legacy hardware

Link

The Zeus nuclear space "tug" will get a 6 Megawatt power plant. The original discussion was about a 1 MW unit.

kvs wrote:Link

The Zeus nuclear space "tug" will get a 6 Megawatt power plant.    The original discussion was about a 1 MW unit.

 

This project really is the ducks nuts...  if successful it will introduce a massive paradigm shift in how we operate in space (I hate employing such an over-used cliche but its apt in this case).  What I find amazing is that Western interests just don't seem to be noticing what is being proposed.  NASA doesn't seem to have any space-based nuclear power on its radar screen, ESA even less so.  They would prefer to blabber endlessly about Musk absurd flying silos (which will never be anything more than an unreliable LEO delivery system if he can mange to overcoem the obvious design flaws) yet Zeus/Nukleon is ignored entirely

It's as though the exceptionalists just can't even contemplate the idea that Russia is capable of developing such cutting-edge technology.  Surely the moskal mud-hut dwellers who live in squallor without the miracles of "free-dumb" and "de-mock-crazy" couldn't succeed where Uncle Shmuel is too timid to try?     Murka has printed greenbacks by the megaton. What do the moskals have to equal that? Well... except for near-zero debt levels, budget surpluses, trade surpluses, uncorruptable people in firm control of national government, efficiently run MIC and technology sectors (no corporate parasites sucking the tax-payer dry while giving zip in return), near unlimited natural resources and many decades of expertise in nuclear engineering...

I'm actually happy about that state of affairs as it will be another "Zircon" moment when these arrogant dikwads suddenly wake up and smell the coffee, realising that their BS has been called out and they have shit on their faces

2030 can't come soon enough

The US Gryphon Technologies has obtained a contract from DARPA to develop an NTP system.

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/commercial-aerospace/article/14231700/gryphon-technologies-tapped-by-darpa-to-develop-nuclear-thermal-propulsion-system

That was $14 million which means it is a proposal for a proposal. That is, nothing to write home about.

The Russian nuclear system was refined during the 1980s and 1990s. It is actual evolved hardware and is not just a design proposal.

Nuclear thermal doesn't have legs. For interplanetary propulsion you need as high an ISP as you can get in order to extract the maximum delta V from your propellent mass, and that neccesitates nuclear-electric power coupled with ion or plasma engines.

USD14M? For that money you will get a concept study, no more. Chuck in an extra $500k and they will give you a pair of embossed coffee mugs and a tour of the plant...

I think the label "tug" for this spacecraft is stupid. It is the first nuclear powered spacecraft. May as well call all spacecraft tugs
if they have a propulsion unit. Clearly a moronic choice. Russia needs to up its game with such details. Trumpet this achievement
to the world.

I suspect there was some sort of innovation that upgraded the reactor from 1 MW to 6 MW.   If the concept was going to need some
power range then why not specify it at the outset.   The limitation is the cooling system since in space it can only be through radiative
emissions and not through conduction or convection.    The cooling structure on this "tug" (looks like a massive solar power array) is
the bottleneck for the design in terms of size.   So I am guessing that they came up with a more efficient cooling method (still using
the panel array) and maybe a reactor innovation as well if the initial specs were not deliberately understated.  

We have here that "Russian secrecy" that gives westerners fake moral authority.   Russians are not spewing PR 24/7.   So everyone
knows that Musk is already shipping his electric tractor-trailer, has a fully functional hyperloop, and has already designed a "starship"
going to Mars, with colonists.  But Russia does not make anything.

kvs wrote:I think the label "tug" for this spacecraft is stupid.   It is the first nuclear powered spacecraft.    May as well call all spacecraft tugs
if they have a propulsion unit.   Clearly a moronic choice.   Russia needs to up its game with such details.   Trumpet this achievement
to the world.

I think they call it a "tug" as the craft looks to be ultimately intended as a general-purpose transport for modular payloads.  Serial-build models might spend their service lives shuttling between Earth & Mars, towing payload modules (eg station components, supply & fuelling modules, accommodation modules for crew changeovers) on the out-bound leg, and swapping payloads on the inbound leg for return of crews and research materials/surface samples back to Earth.

Interestingly, Roskosmos have stated that the new ROS station will have a different mission statement to the ISS and will have more emphasis on in-orbit assembly and logistics.  Sounds like they may be envisioning the ROS to be the "train station" where Zeus/Nukleon couples up to it modules, the crew boards, maintenance & repair is performed, reaction fluid is topped up etc.