Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #5

They should leave the NASA astronaut up there

You know the US would do that if they were the ones with the delivery vehicle

https://rostec.ru/media/news/kuda-poletyat-mikrorakety/#start
About the new class of launch vehicles and engines for them, which Rostec is developing
Photo: Roscosmos
The trend in the space industry in recent years is the transition from heavy satellites to micro- and nanoclass devices. Large launch vehicles are no longer required to deliver them into orbit; so-called microrockets or ultra-light rockets capable of launching payloads weighing up to 500 kg into orbit are sufficient.

This new class is an important area of development in the global space industry, and dozens of countries are fighting for the right to be the first to occupy the newly opened niche. Russia is moving in the global mainstream, developing its own ultra-light rockets. The key element of any rocket is the engines, and their creation for microrockets is being carried out by the design bureau of the Samara enterprise "UEC-Kuznetsov" as part of Rostec.


Faster, higher, lighter
While satellites and other spacecraft weighed hundreds of kilograms, there was no need to reduce the size of launch vehicles. But with the development of microelectronics and other industries, satellites are becoming smaller and lighter. For example, back in the 1990s, the US came up with a new CubeSat standard - a device measuring only 10x10x10 cm. And using launch vehicles like Soyuz or Angara to launch such "little ones" into orbit is unreasonably expensive.

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CubeSat. Photo: Lorenzo.Frezza / wikimedia.org
Of course, heavy equipment will remain for launching large cargo and crews into orbit, but massive and powerful devices are no longer needed to deliver satellites - ultra-light rockets capable of lifting cargo weighing up to 500 kg into the sky can handle this job. Microrockets allow optimizing the process, offering inexpensive and flexible solutions for launching small devices into orbit.

These changes are especially relevant in an era of growing interest in launching private satellites and small vehicles for scientific and commercial purposes. Today, there are already about 8,000 satellites in Earth orbit, and their number is increasing every year. Satellites for Earth monitoring, navigation, the Internet of Things, scientific research, etc. - all of them can be effectively launched using ultra-light rockets.


Microrockets from around the world
Global experience shows that microrockets are becoming increasingly popular in the space services market. Countries such as the US, China and New Zealand are already actively developing and using ultra-light rockets to launch small satellites. Among the successful projects is the American-New Zealand Electron rocket from Rocket Lab, capable of launching up to 300 kg of payload into orbit.

Also, large companies like SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rocket have started offering share programs where several small satellites from different customers can be launched simultaneously on a single rocket. This significantly reduces launch costs for smaller private companies.

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Soyuz-2.1v. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense
Russia is also making serious steps in this direction, developing its own microrocket projects. It should be said that the class of light rockets has been mastered for a long time. Based on the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle, a lightweight version was created with an NK-33A engine developed by UEC-Kuznetsov. The mass of the Soyuz-2.1v launch payload is 1,500 kg. From December 28, 2013 to February 9, 2024, 12 rocket launches were performed, 23 spacecraft were launched into orbit.

The private sector of space exploration is also developing in Russia. For example, the company SR Space is developing a family of ultra-light rockets: geophysical Nebo, ultra-light Cosmos (390 kg) and light Stalker (700 kg).


Technological challenges
Creating an engine for an ultra-light rocket is a complex and ambitious task. The main difficulties are related to the need to ensure high energy efficiency with minimal weight and size characteristics. Traditional rocket engines, which are used on heavy launch vehicles, are not suitable for microrockets due to their large mass and significant fuel consumption. New engines must be significantly lighter, more compact, and at the same time equally reliable and safe.

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Photo: ODK
The main challenge facing engineers is to create materials that can withstand the extreme temperatures, pressures, and vibrations that occur during a rocket launch. This is achieved through the use of advanced alloys and composites that are highly heat-resistant and strong while being relatively lightweight. Fuel efficiency is also an important issue. The less fuel required for launch, the lighter the entire rocket will be. However, the fuel must provide enough thrust to deliver the payload to the desired orbit.

The use of new technologies and materials in engine building also allows for the service life of such rockets to be extended and their reliability to be increased. This is especially important in the context of the multiple use of microrocket components, which significantly reduces the cost of launches and makes them accessible to a wide range of customers.


Rostec in Space
The main developer of Russian engines for ultra-light rockets will be the Samara enterprise "UEC-Kuznetsov", which is part of the United Engine Corporation Rostec. It will create modifications of liquid rocket engines for the first and second stages of ultra-light launch vehicles designed to launch commercial satellites weighing up to 250 kg into Earth orbit at an altitude of 500 km.

photo_2024-09-18_15-35-31.jpg
Photo: ODK
It should be said that many enterprises that are part of the Rostec State Corporation today are closely connected with the space industry. They produce components for rockets, satellites, and spacecraft, and develop new technologies and materials for the space industry.

For example, UEC-Kuznetsov has been manufacturing engines for launch vehicles since the late 1950s. It was here that the engines that first lifted a man into space were manufactured. Every year, UEC power plants provide dozens of launches of launch vehicles with crews and various cargoes. So, Samara specialists have a wealth of experience, a large design and technical base, as well as the most modern technologies. Work on a new engine that will lift the first Russian microrockets into space has already begun.

It is mostly a gimmick. There is no evidence that such reusable rockets will last for dozens of launches. I believe that they have to be refurbished after every
shot, which is not all that cheap. There are plans for a similar sort of reusable system the Amur:

https://en.topcor.ru/18235-novaja-rossijskaja-mnogorazovaja-raketa-nositel-smozhet-letat-50-raz.html

Supposedly it will have a capacity of 50 flights. I don't know, sounds too optimistic to me. Single use rockets are still risky even after 70 years of active
space rocketry.

PhSt wrote:Not related to Russian space program but what do you folks think about this reusable rocket system from Space X? Is this technology something Russia needs to pursue or is it just a fad that offers no significant advantage over current single-use rockets

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1845560344221241777

Belongs to this thread: https://www.russiadefence.net/t6969p150-commercial-private-space-industry-projects-news-and-updates

The US Space shuttles were supposed to be super cheap because they could be reused over and over again, but in actual fact the cost of essentially stripping them down and checking everything is ok and then putting it all back together meant they couldn't be used for two launches in a period or a week or so, and were horribly expensive for most of the roles they were used for.

Ironically the name space shuttle... it was the role of shuttling crews to space stations that they were the most inefficient at.

Smaller lighter disposable rockets burned a lot less fuel, which is a large fraction of the launch costs of these things.

Making something to work reliably once is not hard and they generally have a good margin of error without making it as expensive as a reusable product.

Which is not to say there is no scope for reusable equipment and systems.

Russia is in a unique situation with its scramjet technology where it could used a winged launcher that takes off from a runway under turbojet power and then lights up scramjet engines to climb and accelerate to a 30-40km altitude and mach 8 to mach 12 or so depending on the design where a rocket could be released to travel the rest of the way to space and to orbit. The winged section could then land and be refuelled... a scramjet motor is not likely to explode like a rocket motor is if there is a problem and if there is a problem the aircraft could simply land at the airfield again before the final rocket stage is launched.

Further development of scramjet engines and better aerodynamic shapes could lead to flight speeds above mach 15 and much higher altitudes where much smaller rockets could be used to gain orbital speeds and altitudes making the final rocket stage smaller or to allow higher orbital altitudes to be reached or heavier payloads to be used.

Instead of a final rocket and final tank of liquid oxygen could be fed into the scramjet intake which is closed to the atmosphere and the scramjet could run in rocket scramjet mode...

That is how they managed to put the huge Starlink constellation up.

Is paid for by the Pentagon.

Wikicrappia tries to make it sound as if all Falcon 9 launches were 36 times reuses for the first stage. One of the worst formatted pages I have seen on the
web with a spew of garbage information with almost no meaningful organization. Where is the reusable sub-section with a table of reuses? So we have
obfuscation, which is clear evidence of misinformation. I will not take Space X claims about 36 times or 5 times reuse at face value. They can achieve
first stage landings, but there is no actual information if any of those landed stages were then sent back into space and how many times.

As Hole has noted, the Pentagon pays for this circus so any "savings" are meaningless.

As already proven, something like Starlink is great for lets say private internet use or low level communication. BUT, if it comes to military use, its pointless as Russia has already managed to jam the system to the point even Elon Musk admitted it.

The idea of pushing for Starlink in Russia or similar is not that important. Having a few satellites to cover central, East and Northern Russia is most ideal rather than having a massive constellation of low orbit satellites.

You can't compare the Russian programme with the US programme because the US programme is full of corruption and secret US Military funding that warps the numbers.

Starlink was launched in enormous numbers, but these "private space" companies are heavily subsidised and do a lot of military work that NASA would probably not be allowed to do.

Russia has no shortage of launch capacity if they need it... all those TOPOL missiles and SS-19 missiles and soon Satan missiles they had would be ideal for launching mini satellites into low earth orbit.

Has anyone actually done real maths for the US reusable rockets to see how much money is actually saved and how often any particular rocket actually get reused as expected.

It has potential but it also needs to reliably be reusable dozens of times or more before it would likely become cost effective.

As I mentioned... replacing the first and second stages with reusable jet engines would be a much more attractive idea as a scramjet could theoretically be used hundreds of times making the heavy lifting to get off the ground and through the thickest atmosphere much cheaper and much much easier, and if they can achieve speeds of 3-4km/s at 60-70km altitude then the requirements of a solid rocket motor to launch the payload and accelerate it to orbital speed is much much less than a launch from the ground... in face multiple launches at different angles to achieve different orbits could be executed in a single flight...

@Garry

Nobody has done the maths and all we have are claims and insinuations. Tesla is the company that tried to murder by cop one of its car production workers
who was a whistleblower. Taking their claims at face value is for suckers. They have incentive to lie.

Look at the number of engine failures on their Starship prototypes. If they are going to have 36 reuses then none of them should be failing on first flight.
That is, the reliability is not high enough for reuse and what is happening with the Falcon 9 is a combination of total refurbishment (if there is any saving)
and outright fakery where new rockets are claimed to have a reused first stage.

I recall western chauvinist masturbators making fun of the N1 because it had a lot of "small" engines. But SpaceX using arrays of engines is some massive
innovation. Nothing in this field is untainted by small dick chauvinist insecurity and cope.

lancelot wrote:
Scramjets are airbreathing engines. In comparison with rockets you will have higher gravity losses. And because they are airbreathing they won't work in space. Which means you need another set of engines for that further increasing weight.

The concept can be expanded to have oxidizer transported for use at high altitudes. Just like with rockets.

Part also of Ionozond constellation is the Zond spacecraft

Here is a description of the program:
https://iki.cosmos.ru/en/research/missions/ionozond

The constellation will include a total of four Ionosfera-M satellites and one Zond-M satellite. The third and fourth satellites are scheduled to be launched in April 2025.

https://tass.com/science/1866963

Nobody has done the maths and all we have are claims and insinuations.

That´s why SpaceX won´t go public (= be traded on some stock exchange). As a private company SpaceX isn´t obliged to
publish her financial data. We have to believe Musk about the cost per launch.

Ramjet are not as powerful as rockets because the fuel in them is burned subsonically... so flying at mach 4 or mach 5 you slow down the airflow to subsonic speeds to burn the fuel to generate thrust.

A Scramjet is as powerful as a rocket because the airflow is not slowed down to subsonic speeds and air can be scooped up in flight rather than being stored on the aircraft.

The reason we don't have rocket powered airliners is because all your payload will be used up with oxygen storage to burn the rocket fuel.

A rocket launched into orbit climbs vertically initially but rolls over in the direction it is going to be orbiting the planet. The rocket climbs by accelerating faster... the faster it is moving the higher its orbit... equally to slow down it turns around and directs its rocket motors in the direction of travel and runs its engines to slow down which causes its height to reduce.

A scramjet powered spacecraft could remain in the atmosphere longer and continue to run its scramjet engines while accelerating to rocket level speeds.

Once it can accelerate to no higher speed then the final rocket stage can launch the payload out of the atmosphere and continue to run the rocket motor in the vacuum and accelerate it to climb to the necessary orbital height... and the scramjet powered portion of the launch system can shut down its engines and glide back down and slow down to normal aircraft speeds and then power up its jet engines and land on a normal runway.

The point is that accelerating and climbing through the atmosphere would be vastly more efficient for a scramjet engine to do compared with what a rocket could do.

In comparison with rockets you will have higher gravity losses. And because they are airbreathing they won't work in space. Which means you need another set of engines for that further increasing weight.

The vast majority of rockets that go to orbit use multiple stages... stages that can include different rocket types. Previously jet engines didn't have a useful level of thrust and top speed to be an option for space vehicles but as I mention scramjet engines offer rocket level thrust and speed with jet engine efficiency.

In the same way a trip overseas might be broken down into flights and then driving in a car or bus and then perhaps walking to your final destination.

The concept can be expanded to have oxidizer transported for use at high altitudes. Just like with rockets.

It is rather likely these scramjets will be using slush hydrogen for fuel so having a LOX tank on board allowing  thrust in a vacuum would make sense.

Liquid nitrogen could also be carried as a cheap plentiful gas that could be used as a thruster in space for orientation, but it makes sense to use the scramjets for the in atmosphere portion of the flight and a rocket for the portion outside the atmosphere...

The scramjet making the first portion of the flight cheaper and easier and the altitude and speeds it can operate too will determine how much less rocket will be needed for getting the payload into orbit.

That´s why SpaceX won´t go public (= be traded on some stock exchange). As a private company SpaceX isn´t obliged to
publish her financial data. We have to believe Musk about the cost per launch.

And no one can tell how much the US military is spending for these technologies and capabilities.

Speed is the key detail. The scramjet powered "aircraft" can reach enormous speeds in the upper atmosphere and release a rocket powered payload
for final insertion into LEO. The flying launch platform ("aircraft") does not need to reach the LEO altitude. It can stay under 100 km. The
atmospheric density at 100 km is about exp(-100/7) = 6.25e-7 times that at the surface. There is some optimization of available O2 and altitude that
will decide what flight profile will be undertaken. But even if there is not enough O2 at altitudes required to achieve sufficient speed, then it can be
transported since it will not have to be used for the flight below 60 km. The scramjet will not work at lower altitudes anyway since the air friction is too
high leading to excessive thermal stress.

Exactly. It can remain in the atmosphere and accelerate to a higher speed by dropping the nose to stop climbing.

In a vacuum your speed determines your altitude... if you speed up you climb in orbit and if you slow down you descend.

If you are at 3,000km altitude in orbit and you point your nose directly up and fire your rocket motors and move 10km upwards... your orbital speed... the speed you are travelling wont have changed so when you shut down the rocket motor you will coast a bit on momentum and then you will fall those 10km back down and probably 7-8km past your original orbital height and yo yo till you return to your 3,000km altitude because your horizontal speed in orbit has not changed.

To climb 10 kms you point your nose in the direction you are travelling around the earth and fire the rocket for a few seconds to accelerate and then you will climb. Equally to descend you point your nose in the opposite direction to that which you are travelling and fire the rockets to slow down and your orbital altitude will reduce.

Theoretically if you could fly in a scramjet powered aircraft to 11km/s or faster you could nose up and leave earths orbit... but obviously once you clear the atmosphere your engines will stop working as scramjets.

I would say the most efficient space engines would be ion engines so a small nuclear reactor powering ion engines so once you clear the atmosphere your acceleration is going to be slow but for very long trips you will get up to enormous speeds eventually.

Also the small push from the ion engines will give you a microgravity so there will be an up and down and less need for fans circulating air around the aircraft so everyone can breathe.

Obviously current scramjets are powering 3 ton missiles at 3km/s speeds so there is a way to go before we have Tu-160 sized aircraft launching space rockets, let alone actually flying into space.

It is a case of jet technology catching up to rocket technology massively reducing the amount of fuel and oxidiser needed to launch into space.

As mentioned you could carry some oxidiser and use the scramjet in space as a scramrocket essentially.... but obviously in scramjet mode with a 6-7km/s airflow injecting fuel an burning it is going to give rather more thrust than a few kms above that in a vacuum where the intakes are closed off and the fuel and the oxygen are pumped into the engines to generate thrust.

Of course it might just be used in an emergency if the aircraft pops out of the atmosphere so it can angle its nose and fly back into the atmosphere and restart its scramjet engines to accelerate a bit faster before leaving the atmosphere properly.

You might even rig up an EM system so once you clear the atmosphere you use an EM system to thrust the remaining rocket stage and payload forward accelerating it slightly, but also slowing down the aircraft so it drops back down into the atmosphere and the drag can slow it down and of course its control surfaces used to descend and slow down further... then at maybe 20km altitude you could restart the engines as ramjets and then as turbojets and land on a runway.

The future is exciting.

Technology they will be working on with the MiG-41 will be interesting but it is not just engines, it is also new fuels and new materials and new ways of cooling things down...