Commercial/Private Space Industry Projects: News and Updates

Hole wrote:

Paying nothing is not capitalism. Musk pays nothing. He even gets money from the state to do what the state (NASA) could do cheaper. Why should Russia copy such a System?

GarryB wrote:
What difference does vetting make?

GarryB wrote:
Why sell anything in this regard... it is a tiny market with high risks and moderate returns... you could have a perfect record for years and then a couple of mistakes and you are screwed... and for what?

Big_Gazza wrote:I can't say I approve of ANY dealings with Banderite-controlled aerospace entities.  Russia should simply impose a blanket ban on all such products and enterprises except where needed temporarily until import substitution is achieved. Starve these bastards of funds and drive them into bankruptcy.

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flamming_python wrote:...........
The thing about Rogozin is that he never knows WTF he is about. Replacing a completely new family of rockets that have been developed at considerable expense and are meant to carry Russia well into the 21st century. Right.

Russian private space company Space S7 offers to rebuild the Launchpad at the Baikonur cosmodrome for launches of the new Russian rocket "Soyuz-5", and a functioning platform to continue to be used for launches of "Zenith", said RIA Novosti Director of the company (member of S7 group) Sergey Sopov.

Earlier, in an interview with the magazine "Space research and technology", Sopov said that S7 offered the Kazakh side to start the modernization of the launch site of the complex "Baiterek" from the destroyed site of the "Zenith" launch, which will retain the possibility of implementing the project using the rocket "Zenit" to output commercial loads to create a Russian rocket of the middle class of a new generation "Soyuz-5".

As specified by the head of S7 Space RIA Novosti, the company proposes to continue launching " Zenit "from the existing site at the cosmodrome, and under the new carrier" Soyuz-5", which will appear only by 2022, to restore the destroyed site.

"Our offer is beneficial to all parties. Russian enterprises producing engines and the third stage for Zenit, and in General about 80% of the components of the carrier, will continue to maintain their industrial capacity and retain personnel before moving to the production of Soyuz-5 missiles. The Kazakh side will be able to earn on the launches of Zenit missiles and keep the specialists of combat calculations, that is, people who are directly preparing the missile and launch complex for the launch," he said.

According to him, to restore the destroyed site under the rocket "Zenith" would be economically impractical, because it is being developed to replace the "Soyuz-5".

Earlier it was reported that at present the Ukrainian enterprise "Yuzhmash "is producing 12" Zenith " by order of S7. At the same time, one of the two highly ready missiles is designed for launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the second — for launch from the "Sea launch", which is owned by S7.

At the Baikonur cosmodrome, there is only one operating launch pad for Zenit missiles. The second was destroyed in 1990 by a rocket explosion. That's what it offers to restore S7. Earlier it was reported that the not destroyed, but preserved site will be modernized under the launches of the Soyuz-5 missile currently being developed in Russia.

Russia's S7 Space, part of the S7 Group, plans to build a plant in Samara to produce Soviet-designed NK-33 and NK-43 rocket engines for super heavy-lift launch vehicles and intends to purchase production capacities from the state-owned United Engine Corporation (UEC) for this purpose, S7 Space General Director Sergey Sopov said in an interview.

"We would like to buy from the state the well-known engines NK-33 and NK-43, produced earlier by the Samara-based Kuznetsov plant, as well as the documentation, equipment, technical backlog. In general, everything that has survived on this theme from the Soviet program. We intend to restore production and build our own rocket engine plant in Samara[/b]," Sopov said in an interview to be published in the Vedomosti newspaper.

In April, S7 Space closed a deal to purchase the Sea Launch maritime space launch platform complex in Long Beach, California. It is used to launch Zenit carrier rockets, and in the future, a new Russian Soyuz-5 rocket. The company has repeatedly criticized the Soyuz-5 project for the use of outdated technologies and insisted on the need to develop a reusable carrier. In the next 15 years, S7 Space aims to conduct some 70 launches.
The company's proposal is being discussed in the government, and S7 Space is also negotiating with the UEC on the issue, he added. The total cost of resuming production of rocket engines is estimated at $300 million, Sopov said.

"This includes the production of not only NK-33 and NK-43, but also a control system, which we also would like to do on our own," he noted.

The construction of the plant and the restoration of production will take five to six years, Sopov said. Until the plant's commissioning, it is planned to use 36 NK-33 and NK-43 engines available in storage facilities in order not to wait for new engines.
"This allows us to begin the flight test program for the new Soyuz-5SL rocket, without waiting for the launch of serial production of the upgraded NK-33 and NK-43," Sopov concluded.

The engines NK-33 and NK-43 are modernized engines from the Soviet superheavy lunar rocket N-1. At present, they are used as part of the first stage of the Soyuz-2.1v light rocket. The engines were created and are now stored at JSC Kuznetsov (part of the UEC).

In the near future, the former chief designer of the super-heavy rocket Igor Radugin will come to work in the company S7 Space, where he will take the place of its Deputy General Director Sergei Sopov.

About this "Kommersant" was told by two sources in the space industry and confirmed by source in the leadership of the state Corporation "Roscosmos".

"He has been negotiating with S7 co-owners Natalia and Vladislav Filev for the last six months, which ended in success," says one of the industry top managers."In S7 Space, he will be responsible for the development of a reusable launch vehicle, in which the company is extremely interested."...........

ZHUHAI /China/, November 9. /TASS/. Russia’s rocket engine producer Energomash and S7 Space will develop a technical design of an engine for a reusable rocket by the end of the year, Energomash CEO Igor Arbuzov told TASS at the Airshow China exhibition on Friday.

"We have now set up a joint working group to develop technical specifications for this engine that will be based on the RD-171MV. We will formulate its basic technical characteristics by the end of this year," the chief executive said.

It is presumed that the new engine should feature the option of its restart as compared to its prototype, Arbuzov said, adding that the number of engines had not been discussed at the talks with S7 Space.

As S7 Space CEO Sergei Sopov told TASS earlier, RD-171 engines can be used on the first stage of a reusable rocket, which this private company is developing on the basis of the conceptual design of the Soyuz-5 carrier (being developed by Energia Space Rocket Corporation).

The company has dubbed the new rocket "Soyuz-7" and "Soyuz-7SL" (Sea Launch)

OOO "7 Space Transportation System" received the license for carrying out space activities in the creation and modernization of carrier rockets and other launch vehicles, and their parts and components.

Currently, the company is developing a commercial launch vehicle with reusable elements. This task in LLC S 7 KTS is engaged in team of engineers under the leadership of the Deputy General Director – the chief designer of launch systems Igor Sergeyevich Radugin.

The team of developers of the Federation moved from RSC Energia to the private space company S7 Space, a source in the rocket and space industry told RIA Novosti.

As the source of the Agency, the head of the test sector of the flight test Department, test cosmonaut of RSC Energia mark Serov from today works in S7 Space (part of the S7 Group and owns the project of the floating cosmodrome "Sea launch"). Together with him have gone even five people.

According to him, all of them developed the spaceship "Federation".

Mark Serov RIA Novosti has confirmed its move to the S7 Space.