Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #1

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan, March 27, 2013 – International Launch Services (ILS), a leader in providing mission integration and launch services to the global commercial satellite industry, today announced that it has successfully carried the Satmex 8 satellite into orbit on an ILS Proton launch vehicle for Satélites Mexicanos S.A. de C.V. (Satmex) of Mexico City, Mexico.

The ILS Proton Breeze M vehicle launched from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 01:07 today local time (19:07 GMT and 15:07 EDT on March 26). Utilizing a standard 5-burn Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) mission design, the Breeze M successfully released the Satmex 8 satellite into orbit 9 hours and 13 minutes after launch. The satellite, built on the flight-proven 1300 platform, weighed nearly 5.5 metric tons at liftoff and was the 25th Space Systems/Loral (SSL) satellite launched on an ILS Proton rocket. This was also the first Satmex satellite launched by ILS and the first ILS Proton launch of the year.

Satmex 8 will replace Satmex 5 and will provide enhanced performance and capacity in North, Central and South America at 116.8 west longitude. This new high-power, fixed service satellite has 24 C- and 40 Ku-band transponders, and will improve the current continental and regional services for video contribution and distribution, broadband, cellular backhaul and distance learning.

Satmex 8 adds 45% of total capacity over Satmex 5 which translates to 94% of increased capacity on Ku band to fulfill the growing demand for satellite services in the Americas.

This was the 384th launch for Proton since its maiden flight in 1965 and the 78th ILS Proton launch. The Proton Breeze M vehicle was developed and built by Khrunichev Research and Production Space Center of Moscow, Russia’s premier space industry manufacturer and majority shareholder in ILS.

“We want to thank Satmex for entrusting us with the launch of the Satmex 8 satellite. We also want to express our sincere appreciation for the ILS, Khrunichev, Satmex, and SSL teams for their tireless work in ensuring the mission’s success,” said ILS President Phil Slack.

Satmex President and CEO Patricio Northland added, “We are delighted with the successful ILS Proton launch and orbit of Satmex 8, the latest satellite in our expanding fleet. Satmex offers fixed satellite transmission services to more than 90% of the population in the Americas, and this important addition will provide enhanced performance and capacity to our coverage areas. It also positions us well for future launches of advanced models that will mark step-change expansions in our capabilities. Our sincere gratitude goes to all those who played a role in building and orbiting the Satmex 8 satellite.”

Russian space industry to get $52bn investment, possibly own ministry



On Cosmonautics Day, the Russian space industry was promised billions in funding and its own ministry to maintain its edge in manned spaceflight, and to overcome delays in work on commercial communications satellites and socially important projects.

“In the 21st century, Russia should preserve its status of the leading space power. Therefore, the development of our space capabilities is set to be the top priority of state policy. Our attention to this industry will be increasing,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Putin said that by 2020, the Russian government is planning to allocate some 1.6 trillion rubles (about $52 billion) to the national space industry.

By 2030, the turnover of the space industry globally might grow by five times, reaching $1.5 trillion from its current $300-400 billion. Russia must use this window of opportunity to ensure it achieves a leading role in the world’s space industry, Putin explained.

Putin said he had authorized the government to consider transforming the national space agency into a space industry ministry, since most space industry enterprises belong to the Russian state. At the same time, he stressed that the creation of a ‘space ministry’ should only be done after the Roskosmos national space agency is “fully equipped.”

Despite the progress it has already made, Russia’s satellite industry still lags behind the satellite programs of other industrialized states in the commercial and civil spheres. The Russian satellite industry must concentrate on “the most promising” application of science and technology, Putin said.

For decades Russia’s space program has been primarily oriented towards manned space flights, which comprised 58 percent of the space budget. That explains the underfinancing of other space industries, such as communication satellites, remote mapping of our planet and deep space exploration.

Russia must “keep the leader’s experience of the manned flights and catch up in other space exploration programs,” Putin said, adding that to achieve this, Russia is already constructing new launching site.

Construction of the new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region in Russia’s Far East, near the Chinese border, will cost Russia almost $20 billion. Putin said the installation will host a scientific center, and proposed a name for the town being constructed for the personnel of the launch site – Tsiolkovsky, for the founder of Russian and Soviet rocket construction, astronautic theoretician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Vostochny Cosmodrome will feature two launch pads, one each for light- and medium-class Soyuz-2 rocket boosters. The pads are due to be completed by 2015. Beginning in 2018, Vostochny will be capable of performing manned space launches.

But the development of new installations in Russia does not mean that the old Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome that Moscow is currently leasing out from Kazakhstan for $115 million a year will be suspended. With the contract valid until 2050, Russia would not abandon the world’s largest – though outdated – cosmodrome in Baikonur, Putin said.

Simultaneously to the president’s visit to Vostochny cosmodrome, the Russian Parliament has proposed to make Cosmonautics Day, April 12, an official holiday celebrated nationwide. For over half of a century, the USSR and later Russia celebrate the day when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961, when he orbited Earth for 108 minutes.

In 2011, the UN established the International Day of Human Space Flight, to be celebrated on 12 April.


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WASHINGTON, April 12 (RIA Novosti) – A group of Russian space followers think they have spotted the remnants of a Soviet spacecraft that made the first successful soft landing on Mars more than 40 years ago in an image from 2007 taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

“While following news about Mars and NASA’s Curiosity rover, Russian citizen enthusiasts found four features in a 5-year-old image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket and lander,” NASA said in a statement.

The Soviet space program’s Mars 3 mission made a soft landing on the Red Planet on December 2, 1971 and sent data back to earth for 14.5 seconds before the transmissions stopped abruptly.

When Russian space aficionado Vitali Egorov saw an image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the crater where Mars 3 was believed to have landed, he made models of what key pieces of the Soviet spacecraft would have looked like and got members of an online community that follows NASA’s Curiosity rover to look for objects in the image that matched his models.

The group identified four specks in the bottom part of the image from the MRO that they thought might be Mars 3’s heat shield, parachute, retrorocket and lander.

Alfred McEwen, the principal investigator of the University of Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, was asked to analyze a follow-up image of Mars 3’s landing site, and said the objects identified by the Russian sleuths could be the real thing.

“The parachute, which is seen as an especially bright spot, was the most distinctive and unusual feature in the images,” McEwen told RIA Novosti.

“Overall, the way the images look and their layout on the ground – everything makes sense as belonging to Mars 3,” McEwen said.

But the US scientist said he was still on the fence and wanted to follow up the Russian citizens’ investigation to see if we can “definitively resolve that this is Mars 3.”

Earlier suspected finds of spacecraft remnants on Mars were found by HiRISE to be “energetic particle hits that make ‘noise’ in the image,” McEwen said.

Egorov was quoted by NASA as saying that the Russian citizens’ project showed that “Mars exploration today is available to practically anyone” and that their detective work allowed them to “connect with the history of our country.”

April 15, 2013 11:50 pm (GMT)
ILS Communications Team

We have had a successful mission with the ILS Proton M Breeze M rocket, carrying the ANIK G1 satellite built by SSL for Telesat. We have had confirmation that the satellite separated from the vehicle on schedule at 11:49 PM Eastern Time, or 3:49 AM GMT, 9 hours and 13 minutes after liftoff.

Everything occurred as planned with ignition, shutdown and separation of the Proton’s first three stages. Then the Breeze M upper stage with the Anik G1 satellite aboard continued the mission, igniting five times, and then releasing the satellite into transfer orbit.

Russia Boosting Space Budget To Surpass China, Equal Europe

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Viktor wrote:Almost half of all space launches done by Russia

Russia accounted for almost half of the world's space launches since the beginning of the year  

TR1 wrote:

Viktor wrote:Almost half of all space launches done by Russia

Russia accounted for almost half of the world's space launches since the beginning of the year  

But teh BBC told me they can't do anything right!1!!

Moscow. July 2. NTERFAX.RU - Fall rocket "Proton-M" with three satellites "Glonass-M" - this is the third emergency situation in the Russian space industry for the current year

"In addition to this accident, the 2013 accident rocket" Zenit "by the" Sea Launch "and unintended orbit insertion devices Defence," - said the "Interfax" a source in the space industry.

According to him, this year Russia has carried out 15 launches from Baikonur and Plesetsk. The Russian-Ukrainian missile "Zenit" was used in the project "Sea Launch" and the rocket "Soyuz-ST" - in the launch from Kourou in French. The first stage of the Russian production was used to launch a South Korean rocket KSLV.

Until the end of the year in the Russian Space Agency plans to launch 23 more space, told the agency.

The Russian space industry has suffered from a series of launch failures over the last several years.

On December 5, 2010 a Proton-M rocket with a DM-03 booster failed to deliver three GLONASS-M satellites into orbit.

In February 2011 a Geo-IK-2 geodesic satellite with military applications was lost after a Briz-KM booster unsuccessfully delivered the satellite into orbit.

On August 2011 a Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M booster and Express-AM4 satellite aboard lost communication with the control center.

On August 24 a Soyuz-U rocket carrying a Progress M-12M spaceship as cargo launched from Baikonur but did not reach orbit after failing in the first stage.

On November 9 a Zenith rocket launched from Baikonur delivered into orbit for the first time in 30 years Russia’s Mars probe Fobos-Grunt. But the probe’s engines failed to start in time and it subsequently plummeted back to Earth, partially burning in the atmosphere.

In December 2011 a launch of a Meridian military telecommunication satellite from Plesetsk cosmodrome was reportedly unsuccessful due to engine failure.

On August 6, 2012, the launch of a Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M booster failed to deliver two communication satellites – Russian Express-MD and Indonesian Telkom-3 – into orbit. Officially the booster failed to perform the fourth crucial thrust.

On December 8, 2012 another Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M booster delivered a Yamal-402 communication satellite to off-nominal orbit – again due to a Briz-M booster failure. But later the satellite reached the desired orbit using its own orbit correction engine.

With Tuesday’s Proton-M failure, three accidents have already beset Russia’s space industry in 2013.

On January 15 the secret launch of a rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome partially failed as three military Strela-3M communication satellites were delivered to non-nominal orbits. The military later reported that all the satellites we taken under control and functioned properly. The media however, said that only two of them were ultimately brought under control.

On February 1 a Zenith-3SL rocket – a joint project between the Russian and Ukrainian space agencies – with an Intelsat-27 communication satellite failed to reach orbit. Launched from the Odyssey platform, which belongs to the international Sea Launch program, the rocket fell into the Pacific some 30 seconds after takeoff. The crash was caused by a malfunction of the first stage of the Zenith rocket, which was designed and built in Ukraine.