Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #4

thegopnik wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:Proposed mission profile for the 1st Zeus mission circa-2030. This has probably been posted previously but this the best version I've found.

FWIW there is some scuttlebutt that the mission might flyby Mars instead of Venus.  I hope not, as I find Venus to more interesting - Mars has been done a lot, while Venus has been comparatively ignored.

you have a bigger image or origin of it, i tried to translate it and I am sort of having difficulty if those are 3 of Jupiter's moons on the far right(only recognize callisto I believe for butchered translation of kalpisto)?

On October 8, 2021, the Executive Director for Advanced Programs and Science of ROSCOSMOS, Alexander Vitalievich Bloshenko, presented strategic directions for the development of Russian space technologies. It was in the format of more than an hour-long interview. As part of the interview, presentation materials were shown on promising satellite groupings, new reusable launch vehicles and, among other things, about the modified appearance of the Zeus nuclear tug and its first mission planned for 2030.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/630851620
And there is a separate video presentation with animation of the Zeus deployment scheme in orbit, with comments by Dmitry Konanykhin:

So, in the expanded form, "Zeus" will have a mass of more than 20 tons with a construction length of 70 meters.

I like this revised deployment scheme. It allows a standardisation of the reactor, thermal management and & electrical power infrastructure, and facilitates a customisation of the propulsion and payload modules to suit the mission parameters. It allows each module to fit within the 25T payload capacity of the A5-M, and could be scaled up to suit the increased capacity of A-5V.

Now we just need Russian politicians with some vision to defend the project against the fucking liberasts within the financial ministry and the central bank(st)ers who want to wield a razor to everything in pursuit of accursed neoliberal financial "values".

Big_Gazza wrote:What appears to be an aerospike engine demonstrator is shown at what I think is the the Energomash facility in Perm (?)

This tech demo is being jointly created by the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, the South Ural Federal University, and JSC NIIMash (now part of Energomash) in Nizhnaya Salda.

It looks to be associated with Makeyevs old "KORONA" project for a SSTO vehicle powered by a hydrolox aerospike engine. This engine demonstrator isn't going to power a 300T vehicle to LEO ( ) but it could lead to a practical propulsion technology for efficient re-useable light-weight launchers in the short-mid time scale.

Article that discusses the project in more details:

source

They will need to rethink the heat radiator panel anchoring on the Zeus.   Having a single anchor point on a moving spacecraft is flimsy.   It is not
as if they can't spare the extra mass.

Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft lands in Kazakhstan

https://tass.com/science/1350499

kvs wrote:They will need to rethink the heat radiator panel anchoring on the Zeus.   Having a single anchor point on a moving spacecraft is flimsy.   It is not
as if they can't spare the extra mass.

You're only discussing an animated model. I am sure that the Arsenal design bureau has enough competent engineers who are able to come to the right conclusions about the need to ensure sufficient rigidity of the deployed cooling panels.

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:They will need to rethink the heat radiator panel anchoring on the Zeus.   Having a single anchor point on a moving spacecraft is flimsy.   It is not
as if they can't spare the extra mass.

You're only discussing an animated model. I am sure that the Arsenal design bureau has enough competent engineers who are able to come to the right conclusions about the need to ensure sufficient rigidity of the deployed cooling panels.

Sure they do.   No need to tell me about it.

But if official sources are going to be spreading videos about the project, then don't make them retarded.

The video by Arsenal of their prelim TEM design was more intricate and showed more deployment details, including actuated struts to fasten the radiator panels. I suggest that Roskosmos deliberately chose not to develop their Zeus simulation to that level of detail.

kvs wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:They will need to rethink the heat radiator panel anchoring on the Zeus.   Having a single anchor point on a moving spacecraft is flimsy.   It is not
as if they can't spare the extra mass.

You're only discussing an animated model. I am sure that the Arsenal design bureau has enough competent engineers who are able to come to the right conclusions about the need to ensure sufficient rigidity of the deployed cooling panels.

Sure they do.   No need to tell me about it.

But if official sources are going to be spreading videos about the project, then don't make them retarded.

... but why make it easier for spies?

Fake news bullshit from the idiot murkans...  Is there no depth to which these c&nts are prepared to descend in their quest to shit-can Russia?

Scientists Want Out of Russia
Deepening paranoia and prominent arrests are crushing morale.

source

Just... disgraceful...  

This presstitute whore Natalia Antonova "writer, journalist, and online safety expert based in Washington, D.C." needs to cool her heels in a jail cell...  20 years should do it.  I'll bet my last dollar she's a friggin' Banderite...

The only metric that matters is how many such fearful scientists will leave. Aside from the usual propaganda pap for
western sheeple, if the intention is to agitate Russians to defect to the "free world" this is lamer than a dog with one leg.

kvs wrote:The only metric that matters is how many such fearful scientists will leave.   Aside from the usual propaganda pap for
western sheeple, if the intention is to agitate Russians to defect to the "free world" this is lamer than a dog with one leg.

How many Russians read the pathetic neo-con rag FP?

This is just another exercise in working to get the murkan "thinking class"(*) to hate Russia more than they do already. Its part of the murkan obsession with denigrating other nations while circle-jerking themselves into a creamy lather, cuz thats what Makes America Grate Again.

(*) Murkan "thinking class", an outdated oxymoron if every I've heard one.

Feck, how I despise these idiots.  Looking forward to seeing them pan-handling on the roads in the ruins of Imperial Washington...  

Russia to launch Luna-27 lunar lander mission atop Angara rocket from Vostochny spaceport

The Luna-26 lunar orbiter is due to be launched atop a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket.

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. The Russian Luna-27 lunar automatic station will be launched atop an Angara carrier rocket from the Vostochny spaceport, Head of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said in a new film series of the General Line program on Wednesday.

"The Luna-27 is a heavy lander with a drilling rig that will be lifted by an Angara. That is why we are planning to launch these rovers in 2024 and 2025," the Roscosmos chief said.

The Luna-26 lunar orbiter is due to be launched atop a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket, he said.

Initially, a Soyuz-2 rocket was planned for launching the Luna-27 mission.

Russia's first lunar mission since the Soviet Union is planned for 2022 (Luna-25) to be followed by the Luna-26 probe in 2024, the Luna-27 station in 2025 and the Luna-28 vehicle in 2027-2028.

The Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s first civilian cosmodrome located near the town of Tsiolkovsky (built on the territory of the former settlement of Uglegorsk in 2015) in the Amur Region in the Russian Far East. A decree on the spaceport’s construction was signed by the Russian president in 2007. A multi-purpose launch compound for Soyuz-2 carrier rockets was built in 2012-2016 during the first stage of the cosmodrome’s construction.

The second stage envisages building a launch pad for Angara-A5 carrier rockets and the associated infrastructure. The construction of the spaceport’s second stage is expected to be completed in late 2022.

The Angara is a family of next-generation Russian space rockets. It consists of light, medium and heavy carrier rockets with a lifting capacity of up to 37.5 tonnes. Angara rocket units are produced at the Omsk-based Polyot Production Association (part of the Khrunichev Space Center within Roscosmos). The first two launches of the Angara carrier rocket were conducted on December 23, 2014 and December 14, 2020 from the Plesetsk space center.

https://tass.com/science/1352047

Module ship "Progress M-UM" is preparing for launch

At the technical complex of the Baikonur cosmodrome, the stage of pre-flight tests of the Progress M-UM transport cargo module (TGCM) with the Prichal nodal module (UM) of the Russian Segment of the International Space Station (ISS) continues.

source1

source2

Lots of nice pics at these sites, my favs below:

Space X lovers tout how it is unseating Russian delivery systems based on cost.

Total BS.

Musk is charging $99 million US to launch a 69 kg satellite in 2024.  

Musk claimed back in 2015 that soon he would be launching 1 kg for $1000.   In reality he is charging
1.4 million dollars.

Roscosmos got 1.2 billion for launching 21 missions for One Web.  For a total 672 satellites the price
comes to about 1.8 million dollars per satellite.   Each One Web satellite has a mass of 148 kg.   That
translates in $12,090 per kg.

Americans love a show man... the sales show is more important than the actual product delivery....

kvs wrote:

Space X lovers tout how it is unseating Russian delivery systems based on cost.

Total BS.

Musk is charging $99 million US to launch a 69 kg satellite in 2024.  

Musk claimed back in 2015 that soon he would be launching 1 kg for $1000.   In reality he is charging
1.4 million dollars.

Roscosmos got 1.2 billion for launching 21 missions for One Web.  For a total 672 satellites the price
comes to about 1.8 million dollars per satellite.   Each One Web satellite has a mass of 148 kg.   That
translates in $12,090 per kg.

...you can don't count the cost of a kilogram in orbit. Everything is simpler. $1.2 billion for 21 launches is a total of $57.142 million for one launch. Let me remind you that this is a completely commercial contract, and Roscosmos makes a profit from this amount, although ALL the costs of preparing and ensuring the launch, including insurance, are included here.
Show me which SpaceX contracts exist at that price.

The figure of $10,000 per kg was talked about many years ago as good price for orbital delivery. Accounting for inflation,
the Roscosmos figure is even better than this target. I do not recall where I read it so I do not have links. Probably early
2000s space related literature.

Musk is a show-boating con-man. He talks up some razzle dazzle and the lemmings swoon with sci-fi fairies in their eyes.
His hyperloop, cars in tunnels, and assorted other con jobs should have discredited him. But he clearly has a "roof" and
is never going to be attacked by the western fake stream media which is obviously pushing his BS. Like the CNN reports
on the ludicrous hyperloop.

Space X exists as a US government grifting operation. Its launch costs are several times higher than Roscosmos.

Soyuz is still flying from ESAs launch pads at Kourou so its still winning launch contracts. 3x missions so far lined up for 2022, and 2x for 2023.

2022 source

2023 source

If the Muskian idiots were right, why would ESA still fly Soyuz? Ignore these clowns and dismiss them with the contempt they deserve.

thegopnik wrote:I am assuming that the Irkut would sell somewhere at 500k to 800K a launch. It's not just methane like Amur but glide rocket for best efficiency. Amur is way heavier than irkut but sells at a price for 22 million  so in order for Irkut to match payloads of Amur but as a cheaper solution it would have to sell 500k to 800k a launch.

I think the Russian space industry has enormous potential for competitive pricing. We can look at the US MIC prices and compare
them to Russian MIC prices. There is no way some US conman is going to undercut Russia over any relevant timescale. The only
way that the US can undercut Russia is to engage in dumping like it did with LNG. Look where EU-tardia is now.

kvs wrote:I think the Russian space industry has enormous potential for competitive pricing.  We can look at the US MIC prices and compare
them to Russian MIC prices.   There is no way some US conman is going to undercut Russia over any relevant timescale.   The only
way that the US can undercut Russia is to engage in dumping like it did with LNG.   Look where EU-tardia is now.

The Seppos will do what they always do when confronted by a competitor that they cannot overcome via fair play - they will introduce sanctions invoked for fraudulent reasons. All they need do is to refuse to issue approvals to transport US technology or components to either Russia or China for launch services, and will auto-kill the commercial launch industries in both countries, at least as far as launching western-built satellites.

It won't take much.  An uptick in Banderite aggression and a measured Russian response could easily be packaged as "Russian aggression" with a raft of "focused sanctions" to follow. Heck, they might even just invent shit out of smoke and mirrors the way they are trying with China and their nonsensical allegations of "Uighur Genocide" or "slave labour"  

Well we all know Roscosmos directly assisted in the attempted novachok poisonings of the Skripals and Navalny, so it makes sense they are under sanction...

But as we have seen in other areas the Russians are losing patience and this sort of shit is clearly making them plan their exit from ISS and a future station that does not involve cooperating with the US.

Many people don't seem to understand that there is no "space race" right now. There is a conglomerate of different countries, each of which pursues national interests in space, relying on its own budget. Russia does not need to be ahead of the United States, China, India, Iran, North Korea or any country on Earth. Russia needs to have sufficient technology to ensure its strategic security, its sovereignty and the needs of its economy. The first space race bore the imprint of ideology - it was a battle for prestige points, for demonstrating the superiority of one ideology over another. But now both the USA and Russia belong to the same ideological system - capitalism, what is the point of getting prestige points there?
Consider it from this point of view - and your assessment will be much more objective. With the current resources, Russia must FIRST ensure its survival, and only then think about space exploration.