Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #1

Seventh Meridian satellite derails literally!

The launch of the Russia's new-generation communications satellite had to be delayed by at least three weeks by a derailment during its transportation at the beginning of October, industry sources said. The seventh Meridian spacecraft designed for military communications was transported inside its container to a fueling station at its launch site in Plesetsk, when one of the axles of its railway platform broke causing its derailment. The container with the Meridian satellite had to be transported back to the assembly and checkout building for new tests to ensure that the shock of the accident did not damage its sensitive electronics and propellant tanks. The derailment took place at the curve of the railway, which had been a place of an accident before.
As of August 2014, the launch of the seventh Meridian satellite was expected on September 27, 2014, however by September, the mission was postponed until October 22.
It is unclear whether the satellite involved into the accident would be launched or its replacement would have to be prepared instead.

http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/754172

Russia plans to send manned mission to Moon after 2030 — Roscosmos

MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Russia will send a manned mission to the Moon after 2030 under the country’s far space exploration program, a deputy head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos told TASS on Wednesday. 
“The manned flight (to the Moon) will start from 2030, that’s why it is not included in the federal space program. But technologies that will be developed to perform it are in the federal program,” Denis Lyskov said at the Open Innovations Forum in Moscow.
The Russian federal space program, which envisages launching automatic stations to the Moon and Mars, covers the period of 2016 to 2025, while the program of the far space exploration is to be fulfilled later, Lyskov explained.
Speaking on extending the operations of the International Space Station (ISS) after 2020, Lyskov said it depends on the Russian lunar program. He said US colleagues said earlier they would like to extend the ISS operation deadline until 2024, but Roscosmos is not ready to announce its decision yet.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said earlier Russia sees no commercial reasons to participate in the ISS project after 2020 as Roscosmos spends over 30% of its annual budget on the project.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/ekspress-am6.html

Nice

Russian orbital group of nine satellites will replenish

Viktor wrote:Nice  

Russian orbital group of nine satellites will replenish

Great news, let's hope they will get up there via Angara!

Space science move forward despite the loss of geckos

In the beginning of September, five geckos died in a Russian Photon-M satellite as part of an experiment examining how bio-organisms cope with the challenge of living in space. According to the director of the experiment, Sergei Saveliev, the autopsy showed that there was no food in the animals' stomachs. He attributed their deaths to technical malfunctions. "For the experiment it was important that the geckos mate in space and then lay their eggs - something that didn't happen," said Saveliev.

Despite this setback, Russian research into animal behavior in space will continue.   Dormice will be the next to fly into space, according to Vladimir Sychev, director of the biological program of the Photon-M project. Scientists will study how the animals hibernate in space. Scientists say that dormice are perfect for this study, since they sleep exactly for half a year. There is one particular challenge that must be confronted, however – dormice do not hibernate according to a particular schedule. Rather, they decide themselves when to go into hibernation. Practically an entire zoo has been sent to space by Russian scientists. Mice, gerbils, fish and snails have already been subjects of experiments. And, according to cosmonaut Yelena Serova, who flew to space on Sept. 26 and will spend the next six months on the International Space Station, the I.S.S. crew is currently operating a sizeable scientific program made up of 59 experiments. “In general, we are conducting unique biotechnical and geophysical experiments," Serova said in an interview with Russian daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta before her flight. While the subjects of the I.S.S. experiments are smaller animals, the purpose of the research is to determine the effects of microgravity on bio-organisms in preparation for sending humans to mars in 2024.

In January 2015, the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) plans to carry out an experiment on robots in orbit. With the help of cloud technologies and a special joystick that compensates for the delay in transmitting data from Earth to orbit and vice versa, cosmonauts on earth will attempt to manipulate robots in space. The robot experiments are an important step in the Contour-2 project, which is a preparation stage in Russia’s long-term plan to build a base on the moon. The eventual plan is for robots to be used to construct the moon base. Previous studies have shown that humans can work on the moon's surface for no more than a few hours, which is inefficient for the construction of a moon base. According to Roscosmos’s plans, Russia should complete a habitable base on the moon by 2040.

Mike E wrote:Proton-M rocket with Russia’s satellite to blast off from Baikonur

MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. The Proton-M carrier rocket with the Express-AM6 communications satellite is due to lift off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 15:09 GMT on Tuesday, the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has said.
The satellite is to separate from the Briz-M upper stage at 00:31 GMT on October 22.
This will be the second Proton launch after an accident in May this year. The first successful launch took place on September 28 when the Russian Lutch satellite was orbited.
The Express-AM6 is a satellite that provides communications and broadcasting services in Russia. The lifetime of the spacecraft is 15 years.
The director general at Russian Satellite Communications Company, Yuri Prokhorov, said earlier the enterprise plans to add nine advanced communications satellites to its orbital grouping by 2020. Thus, the number of satellites will reach 20.

Was launched on-time at 19:09:32 Moscow Time.

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:

Mike E wrote:Proton-M rocket with Russia’s satellite to blast off from Baikonur

MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. The Proton-M carrier rocket with the Express-AM6 communications satellite is due to lift off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 15:09 GMT on Tuesday, the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has said.
The satellite is to separate from the Briz-M upper stage at 00:31 GMT on October 22.
This will be the second Proton launch after an accident in May this year. The first successful launch took place on September 28 when the Russian Lutch satellite was orbited.
The Express-AM6 is a satellite that provides communications and broadcasting services in Russia. The lifetime of the spacecraft is 15 years.
The director general at Russian Satellite Communications Company, Yuri Prokhorov, said earlier the enterprise plans to add nine advanced communications satellites to its orbital grouping by 2020. Thus, the number of satellites will reach 20.

Was launched on-time at 19:09:32 Moscow Time.

Thank you... Here is the updated article; http://www.russianspaceweb.com/ekspress-am6.html

Mike E wrote:

I bear some bad news....

Orbit below specifications

Despite claims by Roskosmos and ISS Reshetnev about the successful delivery of the Ekspress-AM6 into its planned orbit, multiple unofficial sources on Russian web forums presented strong evidence that the satellite's orbit was less than accurate, even if not wrong. The available information indicated that the satellite would still be able to reach its operational orbit but, possibly, at the expense of its onboard propellant cache, which would also be needed to maintain the spacecraft's position in space. As a result, the operational life of the satellite could be shorter than projected 15 years.

As evident from the available data about the actual duration of four engine firings of the Briz upper stage during the delivery of Ekspress-AM6, all its maneuvers had a tendency to last several seconds less than planned. The final fourth firing ended 24 seconds early or 50 meters per second short of required velocity. The resulting perigee (lowest point) of the satellite's orbit ended up to be 2,500 kilometers lower than planned, a Russian journalist Igor Lisov estimated.

Although parameters of the final orbit planned for the Ekspress-AM6 had not been yet released, they would have to be very close to those of the Ekspress-AM5 satellite, which was delivered into correct orbit. The Ekspress-AM6 was expected to be released within 0.2 degrees of the projected orbital inclination and within 9.17 minutes of its planned orbital period (the time, which takes for the satellite to make a single orbit around the Earth). However, according to a reliable source on the web forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, Ekspress-AM6 was released into orbit with an inclination 0.65 degrees toward the Equator and an orbital period of 1,373.0 minutes. The comparison of this data to the known orbital parameters of Express-AM5, makes it clear that Ekspress-AM6 delivery was completed outside of the required specifications:

What is the source for this?

Even Zak hasn't pick this up yet.

When you say "Novosti Kosmonavtiki", did you read it there yourself, or the text you are posting has come from another source and is claiming the "Novosti Kosmonavtiki" as a source?

The "reliable source" and the explanation sound a bit fishy too.

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:

Mike E wrote:

I bear some bad news....

Orbit below specifications

Despite claims by Roskosmos and ISS Reshetnev about the successful delivery of the Ekspress-AM6 into its planned orbit, multiple unofficial sources on Russian web forums presented strong evidence that the satellite's orbit was less than accurate, even if not wrong. The available information indicated that the satellite would still be able to reach its operational orbit but, possibly, at the expense of its onboard propellant cache, which would also be needed to maintain the spacecraft's position in space. As a result, the operational life of the satellite could be shorter than projected 15 years.

As evident from the available data about the actual duration of four engine firings of the Briz upper stage during the delivery of Ekspress-AM6, all its maneuvers had a tendency to last several seconds less than planned. The final fourth firing ended 24 seconds early or 50 meters per second short of required velocity. The resulting perigee (lowest point) of the satellite's orbit ended up to be 2,500 kilometers lower than planned, a Russian journalist Igor Lisov estimated.

Although parameters of the final orbit planned for the Ekspress-AM6 had not been yet released, they would have to be very close to those of the Ekspress-AM5 satellite, which was delivered into correct orbit. The Ekspress-AM6 was expected to be released within 0.2 degrees of the projected orbital inclination and within 9.17 minutes of its planned orbital period (the time, which takes for the satellite to make a single orbit around the Earth). However, according to a reliable source on the web forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, Ekspress-AM6 was released into orbit with an inclination 0.65 degrees toward the Equator and an orbital period of 1,373.0 minutes. The comparison of this data to the known orbital parameters of Express-AM5, makes it clear that Ekspress-AM6 delivery was completed outside of the required specifications:

What is the source for this?

Even Zak hasn't pick this up yet.

When you say "Novosti Kosmonavtiki", did you read it there yourself, or the text you are posting has come from another source and is claiming the "Novosti Kosmonavtiki" as a source?

The "reliable source" and the explanation sound a bit fishy too.

This is from Zak, look here... http://www.russianspaceweb.com/ekspress-am6.html#orbit

It came from RSW, so I doubt it is a fishy source.... Zak updates his articles, that is where this one is from.

Another glorious success for Briz-M.

TR1 wrote:Another glorious success for Briz-M.

This isn't a big problem... Yes, it wasn't a perfect performance, but it worked and the reason will be found and fixed. Chances are it was just another small software glitch or something like that. 

Events like this are common in the world of rockets.

Mike E wrote:

TR1 wrote:Another glorious success for Briz-M.

This isn't a big problem... Yes, it wasn't a perfect performance, but it worked and the reason will be found and fixed. Chances are it was just another small software glitch or something like that. 

Events like this are common in the world of rockets.

Guys, don't base your comments on a news item that is yet to be corroborated and is possibly untrue. Is there any other source?

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:

Mike E wrote:

TR1 wrote:Another glorious success for Briz-M.

This isn't a big problem... Yes, it wasn't a perfect performance, but it worked and the reason will be found and fixed. Chances are it was just another small software glitch or something like that. 

Events like this are common in the world of rockets.

Guys, don't base your comments on a news item that is yet to be corroborated and is possibly untrue. Is there any other source?

Other than RSW? There are a couple, but this seems to be "new news" that hasn't yet hit the MSM. 

Here is one; http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2014/oct/proton-Ekspress-AM6-wrong-orbit.cfm

Here is an older one; http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/roscosmos/isnt-confusion-surrounds-possibility-proton-rocket-placed-ekspress-6-wrong-orbit/

I see no reason to doubt it, more so when RSW and many other space sites with good reputations are posting on it....

Let's hope, but given Briz-M's recent record (compared to other launch components, that mostly work flawlessly) I don't find this particularily shocking.

At least the fuckup (if true) is not critical.

Praying Briz-Ms record improves with Angara.

TR1 wrote:Let's hope, but given Briz-M's recent record (compared to other launch components, that mostly work flawlessly) I don't find this particularily shocking.

At least the fuckup (if true) is not critical.

Praying Briz-Ms record improves with Angara.

Even if it did occur, sources are claiming that the satellites orbit-correcting boosters can get it back to the correct orbit without much of a hassle.

Ok???

Lol, I bet you don't just so you can talk crap about it later... Anyway, I expect that it should, and if it doesn't, a stop-gap replacement with be made. - Don't forget about the KVTK and KVSK, which are going to replace it soon.

You kidding me, I would shed a real tear if Briz-M brought Angrara down.

Just because I enjoy pocking CERTAIN US-OBSESSED INDIVIDUALS (cough cough look earlier in this thread) does not mean I want Angara to fail.

Space travel is one of the few things that did not go down the drain post 1991 in Russia.


It is not so much the scope of this fudge up, it is the consistent tendency of Briz-M to deviate from mission parameters. That is worrying.

TR1 wrote:You kidding me, I would shed a real tear if Briz-M brought Angrara down.

Just because I enjoy pocking CERTAIN US-OBSESSED INDIVIDUALS (cough cough look earlier in this thread) does not mean I want Angara to fail.

Space travel is one of the few things that did not go down the drain post 1991 in Russia.


It is not so much the scope of this fudge up, it is the consistent tendency of Briz-M to deviate from mission parameters. That is worrying.

Ok then.... 

I hope that nobody wants Angara to fail, the thing *has been* the Russian space program for a couple decades now... 

It actually did, funding was almost non-existent under Yeltsin. Thankfully Roskosmos wasn't very effected by it, and they left it behind now that funding has returned. 

I agree, hence the reason that the KVTK is getting "rushed" (not in a bad way mind you) through dev. and production.