Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #1

A radio telescope with a diameter of 13 meters was put into operation in the mountains of Karachay-Cherkessia
Russian Aviaton » Thursday June 25, 2015 13:10 MSK

One of the world’s best radio telescopes with a diameter of 13 meters was put into operation in the mountains of Karachay-Cherkessia in Zelenchukskaya observatory (part of the Institute of applied astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences), TASS reports.

The radio telescope is designed for reducing error while defining coordinates using GLONASS system; it will also be used on behalf of a fundamental science – for developing a celestial coordinate system.
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The telescope was developed in record time – two years and three months; the customer is Rosstandart (Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology). In terms of some parameters (operating speed, parameters of the receiving equipment) it outmatches foreign analogues. Along with the 13-meter telescope put into operation on December 26th 2014 in Buryatia the cost of this project was 1 billion rubles. Scientists believe that these new instruments are one of the most important milestones of the Russian astronomy in the last 30 years.

We remind you that RT-13 radio telescope was developed as a part of Kvazar (Quasar) project in Soviet era. It was planned to install five such instruments with identical characteristic in different parts of the country (three ones in Russia, one in Turkmenistan and one more – in Ukraine) in order to assure coordinate-time support of the country.

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka breaks world record in orbit time

Padalka is currently making his fifth spaceflight, which he embarked on March 27. The cosmonaut is expected to return to Earth September 11

MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who is on board the International Space Station (ISS), at about 02:00 a.m. Monday Moscow Time [23:00 Sunday UTC] set a world record in the overall orbit time, set by his colleague Sergey Krikalyov 10 years ago - 803 days.

Padalka is currently making his fifth spaceflight, which he embarked on March 27. The cosmonaut is expected to return to Earth September 11. In this way, the overall time spent by him in space will reach some 880 days.

The rocket and space industry told TASS that in order for Padalka’s new record to be recognized officially, the cosmonaut has to spend five percent more time in orbit than the previous record holder. Thus, the new achievement will only be taken into account in the first ten days of August.

Russia saving on space research

Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft successfully enters orbit

Austin wrote:Russia saving on space research

This is a real Lame title..  Imagine you get arrested and sent to jail..and the news of the city
report that you will save money now in rent..

Is so stupid ,so lame that the Russian Government is cutting by 1/3 the space budget..
The imbeciles in Russian Government ,starting with Putin , really believe that building
more Warships and more nuclear weapons is going to make safer Russia. Instead of making
Cuts in the useless things .. If the just take the money of the mistrals.. and build NOTHING to replace them.. and de-commision all their worthless Soviet Destroyers ,that are good for
nothing.( without touching their new naval frigates and corvettes projects untol 2020). and cut a little the funding in Sports.. then they will have ENOUGH money not only to NOT cut the budget
in Space.. but to actually increase it..  become more ambitious and do more missions in open space..  Canceling their Super Heavy Rocket is the most stupid thing i ever heard.. They are not saving anything , they are moving backwards ..

Someone needs to slap two times the face of MR Putin and tell the moron that Building More Nukes and building Mistrals or bigger warships WILL NOT MAKE RUSSIA ANY SAFER.. not even a little.

Russia biggest threat will be urban warfare with terrorist. but also a major danger Russia face
is THE AMERICANS MILITARIzATION OF SPACE .  So Russia Government needs to RUSH and start investing much more in space.. it will create lots of more jobs and develop it industry. Get their own space station.. and be 100% ready when americans leave their space treaties and start deploying anti satellites weapons in space .. to be ready for it. but also to be
ready for another space race.. This are the only things that can allow Russia not only to boost
their economy.. (investing in space) but also become a far more influential nation in the world..

IF Russia have any plans to continue to exist.... There is only 3 ways they can do it..and there are no other way . either they defeat Americans in a nuclear war or .. or they totally collapse American economy or Russia become so amazing in Space traveling that Europeans will leave their alliance with Americans.. in order to become more closer to Russia.

But building more nukes ,more Warships will NOT make safer Russia..in any way.
Reducing the Budget of their Space program is the most Moronic Idea ever..by PUtin and Russia Government.. Russia Major Problem in the world , is that it cannot replace the influence
that Americans have over Europe and this Put Russia in a dangerous coalition with all their neighbors. You have everyone in Europe ,including former soviet republics wanting to be part of
the European Union.. why is that? that Russia have so much problems to make allies in Europe? it is because American SHIT smell better?  no is not.. It is because RUssia image as a super power and technological leader is in question.. People wants to be closer to the most
powerful and most successful and not close to the losers. . US have all the technology and all the things people need for the present and near future ..and Russia needs to find a way to sell better their nation ,as a leading technology  Power .. become not just  competitive ,but far ahead of Americans ,on anything that is prestigious.. and nothing is more prestigious that space . Selling cheap Gas is not going to help Russia to make more allies.. The whole Ukraine
Conflict is consequence of Russia unability to project a better image than Americans or Europe.
Had all Ukrainians saw Russia as superior nation to the west.. with more things to offer ,you will not see people killing each other in Ukraine seeking to join the EU..or making alliances with USA. Instead everyone will be seeking to be part of Russia and their amazing development..

Vann, no offence but your tirades are getting tiresome to read

No worry vann

Putin invest billon IT + Nano tech

Russia still energy power
$100 billon. 16x Saud atomic plant !

Book. wrote:No worry vann

Putin invest billon IT + Nano tech

Russia still energy power
$100 billon. 16x Saud atomic plant !  

IT is depressing to see what the Americans are seeking to do..
FUll domination of space.. and Russia government sitting on their hands ,with their finger up
in their buts. When Americans start building space drones in numbers , and deploying a lot of hardware in space.. it will not pass long , before Russia will discover cannot travel any more to space , because every space rocket Russia launch will be secretly shot down ,either with a rail gun or using space mines and Russia will be unable to know what really happened.

Effectively US government major goal , is to blockade Russia from space.. and they can do it..
unless Russia develops their own secret Sabotage Programs too in space and increase the security of traveling for space for them.. so that later Russia cannot be secretly blockaded from sending satellites or any space rocket there.

A little late for posting this response to Vann but:

The issue Vann, is that during 90's to now, Russia heavily relied upon off the shelf parts from west in space development. While it sucks they shaved off 850B from a 2.85T ruble budget, it is much needed atm. This does not mean they cant revise it later when more funds are available. Also, Angara 5 with some modifications will act as the super heavy launcher, instead of them building something different. If you also have read the article, thr major cutbacks have been on interterrestrial lunar probes, where they reduced a few down to even fewer. Sucks but it really isnt ideal at the moment. Majority of it is going to building the Angara rockets, and launching huge amount of satellites for earth, as well as ISS modules and such. They will also be scrapping a new sat that would transport samples from other planets back to earth, to a series of sats they already have and tested/tried. They will be doing more Joint work with other countries to send probes to other planets instead. As well, India proved that even a $1B a year for space industry budget, that a lot can be accomplished.

On same note, Angara is going to be huge for Russia and will bring lots of money. The space agency in the article also states that what is planned for now to 2025 could bring in roughly 1.2T roubles in revenue. Not to mention, sales of Angara to other countries/companies.

As well, Roscosmos is being modernized as a whole and being merged with various sub companies/state contractors as one entity, to overall decrease costs.

With sanctions, costs of anything for roscosmos increased 30%, best guess is due to imports of parts. They will need to eventually replace them with domestic, and I imagine it will take plenty of time to do it.

So dont get your panties in a twist. Yes it sucks that they reduced it by 850B roubles, but 2T roubles is still a lot, lot more than it used to be, even then they did a lot.

If one does the math, the revision goes (with current exchg rates) of $4.96B a year to $3.48B a year. A billion a year less. Not that major of a difference. And 70 - 75% of that budget is R&D based.

Expedition 44 Crew Conducts News Conference in Russia



About Russia reducing by 1/3 its space budget and canceling their Super heavy carrier Rocket
,This is possibly one of the worse thing Russia will do on their space program..Basically Russia is throwing the towel for any Mars manned mission.  And be happy with being second or third best in space. while all other nations increase their space budget. the only thing worse than that will be shutting down the entire space program ,to save money for more stupid mistral like carriers and more warships for projecting nothing ,and 40 more nukes.. totally useless expensive things ..so is not so bad i guess.

Meanwhile While Russia give up in mars, CHina plans a Rover mission and orbiter to mars in just 5 years..

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/12090841-china-mars-mission.html?referrer=https://www.google.com.pr/

And NASA plans a plane to fly over Mars.. nice eh?

http://www.newsgram.com/mars-mission-nasa-shows-first-plane-to-fly-on-the-red-planet/

Hopefully that myopic President in the kremlin will be out in next elections..and someone
else with more vision replace him and take Russia space program to the lead. not the backseat.

They can develop a Super Heavy off of Angara, Vann... This isn't a big deal...

Space budgets are important but should not be priotized.

Besides, didn't an official recently say they won't cutting the budget as much as planned?

Mike E wrote:They can develop a Super Heavy off of Angara, Vann... This isn't a big deal...

Space budgets are important but should not be priotized.

Besides, didn't an official recently say they won't cutting the budget as much as planned?

They already said that they are modifying Angara to act as a super heavy launcher instead of building a whole new one.  Don't listen to vann, he is full of it.  Add to that, Russia is still sending lunar probes, just reduced the amount they are sending.  So he is jumping to conclusions as usual.

BTW, Vann, India spends 1/3 what Russia does per year on space, and they still sent a probe to Mars.  How about that?

Edit: Mike, if you can provide detail and link to where they said they wont reduce budget as much, please do so. Because even I think a lot is easily possible with $3.4B per year, especially in current terms.

Presents new Russian space suit for spacewalk

Export Revenue to Help Russian Space Industry Cut Expenditures - Roscosmos

According to this, the budget for the super heavy rocket was reduced to $1.15B from $11B. So that means they will either save money on moving it to Angara which most likely is the case and what I have heard they said they will do, or it will take longer to produce it. Time will tell.

PapaDragon wrote:

sepheronx wrote:Export Revenue to Help Russian Space Industry Cut Expenditures - Roscosmos

According to this, the budget for the super heavy rocket was reduced to $1.15B from $11B.  So that means they will either save money on moving it to Angara which most likely is the case and what I have heard they said they will do, or it will take longer to produce it.  Time will tell.

This is because they dropped the separate super heavy rocket and opted to modify Angara for manned missions. Hence the much lower figure.

Instead of one super heavy rocket they will use two heavy Angaras.
One launch for crew capsule and other for propulsion module. Then they connect in orbit and move on to their destination.  

Makes sense. Also, it seems that nuclear propulsion system is still being worked on but with changes to its development. But they didnt state what that entails.

Once Roscosmos is merged together with the other space based development companies, there should be significant amount of revenue and budget to start improving roscosmos. Something that has been stated before, is that money alone has not fixed any of the problems facing the organization. While budget these years is definatly higher than mid 2000's, but a huge portion of issues still stand: mismanagement, wasteage of funds, corruption, poor QC for parts, aging workforce, etc. So dumping just money wont fix that, but clearly merging groups, streamline production (Angara for example) and getting all branches to work closer will definatly help that. To me, it is surprising that Roscosmos has actually continued to function as well as it has with the various issues and horrible underfunding of last decade. But it continues to strive. Angara rockets alone will help generate plenty of profits for Roscosmos and those profits alone will help in modernization.

The Aussie's aren't even close to being a significant space power, yet they can get away with this?

Australia delaying visas to Russian Roscosmos team heading to UN satnav conference

I'd like to hear GarryB's reaction to this, because the Bogan ham-handed Tony Abbot govt. is getting kookier by the day...but I'm sure his xenophobic Bogan constituency will support him with this, and I'm also sure Tony can successfully 'shirt-front' a internationally recognized judo grand-master lol!

I guess at that point, whatever Russia launches into space and UN starts to bitch about it, they can point their complaints over to Australia for not allowing their scientists to join the conference.

Too bad for them I suppose. Just continue to do work and screw what the rest thinks.

Hopefully that myopic President in the kremlin will be out in next elections..and someone
else with more vision replace him and take Russia space program to the lead. not the backseat.

Space races are shockingly expensive and ultimately stupid... look at the only example... the US got men to land on the moon first... they didn't land things first on the moon, they didn't orbit the moon first, they didn't even see the other side of the moon first... all they did was land men there... a trillion dollar one man game of golf... with a golf cart and everything...

A trip to mars is going to be much more complicated and dangerous... a nuclear powered ion engine will have a dramatic effect on any trip there.

Makes sense. Also, it seems that nuclear propulsion system is still being worked on but with changes to its development. But they didnt state what that entails.

I think the change they have made is that instead of creating a space tug with nuclear power and ion engines they will just create the engines and power source so that it can be built into any space craft.

Instead of a minimum of six months it would take around a month to get
there. Ideally one would have a 1 g thrust system and the trip would consist of accelerating to the half way point and then flipping the
craft around and decelerating at 1 g for the last half of the trip. This way there would be artificial gravity on the trip as well and the
total trip time would be about 4 days.

I totally agree, but I think 1g is too ambitious... a thrust of maybe 0.2-0.4g would be enough and greatly simplify things.

To explain to others, having a chemical rocket means enormous thrust for a few minutes and then you coast most of the way, with another chemical rocket burn near the end of the flight to slow back down when close to the destination. That means zero gravity most of the way... which is a pain, because you will need ventilation fans going all the time blowing air around and scrubbing the CO2 out of the air so the cosmonauts don't suffocate... without fans the air would not circulate and once you had breathed in and out for a few minutes there would be a build up of CO2 near you and a reduction in O2. (You don't breath out only CO2 otherwise mouth to mouth resuscitation would be mouth to mouth suffocation). the fans move the air around and filters take the CO2 out of the air and replace it with more O2... hopefully somewhere on the ship there are plants to convert the CO2 into O2 as well as provide food.

the point is that even very low gravity will make most things a lot easier and simpler.

If you launch two spacecraft on a very long journey like to Mars... one with chemical rockets, and one with ION engines the chemical rocket will race away ahead of the ION powered craft, because the chemical engined rocket will accelerate much faster but over a very short period... but solid rocket fuel is heavy and relatively inefficient... sending a rocket to Mars you will need 10 times the weight of the payload in rocket fuel to go there, but you also need more rocket fuel to stop when you get there... and you need even more rocket fuel to come back... lets say the payload is a 20 ton spaceship orbiter for Mars... to slow it down in Mars orbit you might need 5 times the fuel weight as the payload... which means 100 tons of fuel just to slow down... which means you have to have 10 times 20 tons plus 100 tons of fuel... 1200 tons of fuel to launch to Mars... and that is not even landing or people on board or food and basic requirements.

With an ION engine it has very low thrust but it can operate continuously for years... yes years.

At launch the chemical rocket will streak away, while the ion powered craft will slowly gather speed... after 5 minutes the chemical rocket will have stopped burning and will coast all the rest of the way and after a couple of days the ion engined craft will be travelling at the same speed... but a day later it will be travelling much much faster and it will continue to be moving much faster for the rest of the trip till about 3/4ths of the way there... at the half way mark the ion spacecraft will rotate 180 degrees and start to decellerate, because while it takes a long time to get up to high speed it also takes a long time to slow down too.

In fact an interesting idea would be disposable solid rocket boosters for the ion craft... they could be used to speed up deceleration so instead of slowing down for half the trip they could delay slowing down to later in the flight to increase the average speed and reduce flight time.

The huge advantage of long burn time for ion engines is not the only advantage... it gains relatively high thrust from very light weight material ejected at very high velocity and it is the ejection velocity that determines top speed... this means ion engines can accelerate an object to a much higher speed than chemical rockets too so even though it take longer it can get to much higher speeds.

I don't see the point of even trying to go to Mars without developing the technology first. The technology is clearly within reach
and some stupid "we got there first" in a tin can boasting is idiotic. I find the project where people are signing up on a one way trip
to Mars to be retarded as well.

X2

I'd like to hear GarryB's reaction to this, because the Bogan ham-handed Tony Abbot govt. is getting kookier by the day...but I'm sure his xenophobic Bogan constituency will support him with this, and I'm also sure Tony can successfully 'shirt-front' a internationally recognized judo grand-master lol!

He is a dick, and I wonder why such international organisations bother having conferences in such xenophobic places. Without Russia present this conference will be largely pointless... I would say to Russia... don't go even if the Visas are given. Screw them.

I guess at that point, whatever Russia launches into space and UN starts to bitch about it, they can point their complaints over to Australia for not allowing their scientists to join the conference.

All future conferences in Russia?