Roscosmos Planetary Exploration Missions

I wonder what Musk is doing to prevent taxpayer money to go up in flames. Looking at his record I would say...nothing.

GarryB wrote:

And right on cue, at least this time they discovered that some moron has been dicking with hammers BEFORE whole thing went up in flames lol1

If only there were some advanced technology capable of recoding and storing images from stationary position...

Sounds like they detected a problem with the current procedures and systems...

You can defend PD as a non-troll all you want but he has been posting lies in this thread on a consistent basis. Exo-Mars has been
delayed for 2 years for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia.

https://spacenews.com/exomars-rover-mission-delayed-to-late-2022/

I suppose, according to PD, Russia's space program must be devastated with the loss of access to precious NATzO money thanks to
this delay.

The whole camera discussion should go to the bollox thread since it is one big troll by PD.

Anyone who pooh-pooh's the Russian space program as a nothing is by definition a troll. If it was so easy, then Serbia could
do a better job. Considering that the ESA is behind Russia in terms of both launches, launchers and satellite network, all EU
forum members who spit on Roscosmos are certifiable trolls. Interesting how there are no members from China trash talking
about Roscosmos and ESA even though China is a ahead of the ESA as well.

The only lead that ESA has is its bloated budget:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/outer-space/news/european-space-agency-gets-astronomical-budget/

around 14.4 billion euro per year. What are they doing with this money? Looks like pure corruption rot. And no, they are not
"feeding" Roscosmos with it. Roscosmos is giving these clowns launch capacity both in the main ESA space port in French Guyana
and for its space exploration missions such as Exo-Mars.

kvs wrote:If it was so easy, then Serbia could do a better job.

We are still waiting for Canada to show us how it's done that is all

kvs wrote:should go to the bollox thread since it is one big troll by PD.

GarryB wrote:... next person on this threat to call someone else a troll or tease about human rights and a countries path toward true western enlightenment gets a break of a couple of days to think about what a real tough guy they are...

Also if you got something to say to PD polite thing to do would be to address PD directly

Russia plans to send mission to Venus

Projects of Venus missions are included in the united government program of Russia’s space exploration for 2021-2030

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Russia plans to send its own mission to Venus in addition to the planned joint mission with the USA "Venera-D," head of Russian space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin told reporters on Tuesday during the HeliRussia-2020 exhibition.

"Resuming Venus exploration is on our agenda. Firstly, we have the "Venera-D" project in cooperation with the Americans. We are also considering our own mission to Venus. We think that Venus is a Russian planet, so we shouldn’t lag behind. Projects of Venus missions are included in the united government program of Russia’s space exploration for 2021-2030," he said.

Scientific Director of the Russian Space Research Institute Lev Zeleny told TASS in May that Russia would develop a new Venus exploration program, which would include sending at least three research vehicles to the planet.

The researcher said that the first expedition within the program will be the "Venera-D" planned for late 2020s. The project will form part of the government space program. The previous comprehensive program for the study of Venus was implemented in the USSR.

https://tass.com/science/1201053

Hole wrote:I wonder what Musk is doing to prevent taxpayer money to go up in flames. Looking at his record I would say...nothing.

There are musktards arguing with me that Russia is not on the level of creating Starship. They could be on a level above the starship if they continued with UR-700 to UR-900 but they have reasons cancelling that to go nuclear. While the US for stupid reasons cancelled NERVA to not be on a good pace in nuclear propulsion technology.

thegopnik wrote:There are musktards arguing with me that Russia is not on the level of creating Starship. They could be on a level above the starship if they continued with UR-700 to UR-900 but they have reasons cancelling that to go nuclear. While the US for stupid reasons cancelled NERVA to not be on a good pace in nuclear propulsion technology.

"Starship" is nothing but a Muskian con-job. This fucking idiot really thinks that he will send his flying silo to the Moon??? or Mars???

Gimmee a break... Has he invented a new set of physical laws????

Consider Apollo. The Saturn 5 launcher was needed just to get a ~29T spacecraft up out of the gravity well and into lunar orbit. By the time the crew returned to earth they only had a few % of the launch mass remaining, but Musk and his legion of fuktard True Believers think they are going to return the complete Crapship to a controlled landing, ready to refuel and fly again??? How is he going to carry all the fuel needed to lift the Crapship up to lunar orbit (along with all the passengers and their supplies & equipment)???

How is he going to deal with thermal loading from re-entry when returning from a lunar trajectory? Lunar capsules require reinforced (ie heavy) ablative sheilding, but this charlatan thinks he will stick on a few lightweight "high tech" (??) heat shields and all will be just fine and dandy???

FFS, just extrapolate the above to Mars. He thinks that Crapship will be able to carry enough chemical fuel to leave earth orbit, arrive at Mars, and then perform a largely powered landing cuz he won't have chutes and the tenuous Martian atmosphere lends sod all braking support????? He is going to use Methalox and try to manage propellent boil-off over a 7-month flight???

Where is he getting fuel to make the return trip? let me guess... he is going to use solar cells to power a plant to harness martian subsurface ice, electrolyse it into H2 and O2, then liquefy and store it as rocket fuels. Hmmm... yeah.... we have fuck tons of frozen water at our planets poles and to my knowledge, no-one makes rocket fuel this way, but Musk thinks this is a going concern and will stake the lives of a prospective crew and passengers on it???

What about radiation hazard? Solar radiation flux outside Earths magnetosphere is ~6x that within. 7 months of interplanetary cruise results in a radiation exposure equivalent to 3.5 YEARS on the ISS, and that's not even considering exposure at Mars or the return journey. Will he allocate sufficient mass (lead) for a radiation shelter for the dozens of unfortunate (and suicidal) souls that he wants to pack into his doomed ego-trip missions???

Nah, Musk is a FUCKING CHARLATAN. He takes other peoples IP and claims it as his own. His reusable rocket tech was based on the groundwork performed by NASA. The US gov sold it off to him as part of their ideological campaign against anything that even smells like public ownership, then handed over BILLIONS of public money thru no-bid contracts at inflated prices to provide him with free development capital. The experts who did the groundwork left NASA and joined his start-up, but Musk wants you to think that he did it all, and that's its all a triumph of "private enterprise".

The "miracle" of "private space" is a con-job. The profitable space activities (ie commsats and rocket building) have been privatised for DECADES already. ISS-related activities CONSUME money, it doesn't generate any net revenue as nothing it produces has any significant commercial value. Musks ISS launch services only exists as a business while the US gov continues to spend. "Space tourism" isn't going to amount to anything significant as its little more than a way to make pocket chnage from an existing but underutiised flight capability. When the US economy eventually goes tits-up, their manned space program will come to a grinding halt and there is ZERO chance that private capital will reach into their pockets to fund meaningless activities that burn money faster than a gas-fired brick-lined furnace...

"Private Space" will go the way of the "Shale Miracle". Its a fundamentally flawed confidence game by charlatans that relies on the abject stupidity of the uninformed public, and the connivance of "journalists" who seek no more than a regular paycheck by spruiking for those who run the shell game.

The 7 month trip time is under the best possible conditions of Mars being closest to Earth.    During those 7 months they better pray they do not
have a CME aimed in their general direction.  Then their radiation dose could become lethal.

I think manned inertial guidance trips to Mars are criminal nonsense.   Use a real spaceship with nuclear driven propulsion and get there in
two months.   You also do not have to bother with making fuel from subsurface Martian ice.   Even if some samples indicate a substantial amount,
I suspect that there is a very deceptive situation.    The reason that the water would be below the surface is that there is no thermal pumping
to keep it from diffusing into the interior of the planet.   On Earth it gets really hot deep enough so that water is basically being boiled and forced
back to the surface.   Even with this process, there is several global oceans' worth of water chemically incorporated into the upper Mantle rock.
On Mars, the volcanism has died off which indicates that it does not have enough radioactive decay driven heating (as we have on Earth) to
keep a molten iron core that can act as a geodynamo and produce a magnetic field.    Mars lacks the Van Allen belts that keep radiation away
from the Earth's surface and also help reduce ablation of the atmosphere by the solar wind.   Ultimately, the water in the Martian ground is
unlikely to be concentrated and the ice layer sampled by one of the landers (the Canadian one, as I recall) is likely to be some localized migration
effect that concentrates the regolith water fraction near the surface.    

We have similar strange ground water behaviour on Earth in the polar zones where frost crystals form a type of "convection" and we also
have self-concentration effects that give us pingos.   So Musk is highly unlikely to find enough concentrated water in the Martian soil to
launch a fuel production process.   His doomed astronauts will be forced to mine water until they die.

You do have a point because the Keldysh was concerned about radiation, for example they found it very wasteful to make several meter lead walls but trying to find ways to reduce weight regarding the creation of material. Even if we were to give Space X the benefit of a doubt on landing on Mars, I doubt anything chemical rocket related would be helpful regarding further space travel like landing astronauts on Jupiter's moon Ganymede.

thegopnik wrote:You do have a point because the Keldysh was concerned about radiation, for example they found it very wasteful to make several meter lead walls but trying to find ways to reduce weight regarding the creation of material. Even if we were to give Space X the benefit of a doubt on landing on Mars, I doubt anything chemical rocket related would be helpful regarding further space travel like landing astronauts on Jupiter's moon Ganymede.

Any real effort to explore the solar system will require the development of high thrust ion propulsion. Efforts with VASIMR are not showing the expected thrust benefit.
By contrast MPD engines show more promise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoplasmadynamic_thruster

The wiki link is only useful to define the concept. Their numbers are garbage.
These links gives more realistic numbers:

http://tesi.cab.unipd.it/57426/1/Botti_Veronica_1083963.pdf

http://electricrocket.org/IEPC/IEPC-2007-136.pdf

Russia is no longer interested in joint expeditions to Venus (the Venera-D mission) and other space missions with the yanquis. A sad day for Uncle Swine-shit.
Instead, Russia will be mounting its own exploration missions using nuclear powered spacecraft. Before the end of 2020, Roscosmos will sign the "Nuklon" contract
to construct a nuclear powered spacecraft to be used to explore one of the moons of Jupiter starting in 2030, taking several years to reach it. The mission
is to consist of three stages:

1) A visit and transfer of observation payload to the Earth's Moon

2) Then a visit to Venus with transfer of another observation payload

3) Finally a trip to Jupiter and one of its moons.

Of course, the Russian kreakls will be chirping it is all Putin's cartoon hoax until the launch date.

No one takes the fifth column seriously so who cares what they say.

This is good news. Once they were working on nuclear engines I said they can forgo the need to work with others.

Venus considered a "russian planet" because it is "red"?

I have been sounding like an uninformed dumbass this entire week, but I take it that this nuklon contract is different from their proposed Mars mission correct? Or there already has been a signed contract for the mars mission, meaning the nuklon contract is completely different right?

thegopnik wrote:I have been sounding like an uninformed dumbass this entire week, but I take it that this nuklon contract is different from their proposed Mars mission correct? Or there already has been a signed contract for the mars mission, meaning the nuklon contract is completely different right?

I'm not really informed on that issue, either, but yeah, I've seen some Russian comments (just some dudes) saying that this must be a different space tug project with significantly more thrust...no idea if that's accurate, though.

https://german-kmw.livejournal.com/112316.html







Russian Arsenal already produce 200 kW nuclear space tug boat. For Mars mission they will make 1 MW nuclear space tug boat Nuklon for space ship, which will work for 10 years for many missions, not only for Mars but for other planets as well. As this man said, the main problem is cooling system in space and it seems Russians made a solution.

In my opinion every country in the world should be sucking Russia's dick(not literally) and be doing everything in their power as in financial and resources support for that country's space agency. I want projects like launching a vityaz submarine drone to explore the ocean of Enceladus in search of underwater life, etc. Make something similar to breakthrough starshot, etc.

The Russian nuclear propulsion for space is a real historic breakthrough. There is no limit for the power density of a reactor compared to
chemical fuel. Chemical fuel scales volumetrically, but nuclear reactors do not. So a 10 MW reactor can be installed without making
the spacecraft 10 times heavier. I am sure that the cooling solution is not crappy and will not kill off this advantage. If they can
get over 100 N of thrust from a 1 MW reactor, they can get over 1000 N of thrust from a 10 MW reactor by simply scaling up the number of
MPD ion engines, this will add weight but nothing like adding chemical fuel to achieve the same thrust gain.

A 1000-2000 N thrust spacecraft is what will enable travel throughout the solar system. It can use both the gravitational slingshot
gains but can use powered flight minimized trajectories. The Cassini-Huygens mission took 7 years to reach Saturn. Powered Flight
would enable arrival in less than 2 years. The presence of continuous thrust is something fundamentally new in human space flight.
Up to now all we had was inertial guidance.

From the talk of several years to get to Jupiter I am seeing the same foot-in-mouth disease from Russian sources. Several years
is what it would take to get there with inertial guidance. Scaling up the Mars estimate with 200 N thrust, we have 1.5 years or
so of continuous acceleration. This is 10 times longer and thus the average speed goes up by the same factor. Around 430,000 km/h.
That is insanely fast compared to inertial flight. Increasing the thrust from 200 N to 2000 N gives options for direct flight paths at
speeds not dreamed of by inertial guidance. Flight times to Saturn of a few months, etc.

thegopnik wrote:I have been sounding like an uninformed dumbass this entire week, but I take it that this nuklon contract is different from their proposed Mars mission correct? Or there already has been a signed contract for the mars mission, meaning the nuklon contract is completely different right?

I think you'll find that the vehicle that Arsenal are building is a technology demonstrator (its clearly not a mock-up), a lower-powered version, probably intended for launch in a few years to prove the basic technology (reactor, cooling system, electrical power system, ion engines, flight controls etc).  The contract intended to be signed this year would be for the full 1MW vehicle.  Indications are that the tech demonstrator and upper stage will be approx 25T, so I won't be surprised if it is launched once the Angara pad is complete at Vostochny and the A-5M certification flights are complete.

Yep, I think its a dead-set certainty that the 2030 mission to Moon, Venus and Callisto won't be the first TEM that gets launched.  All eggs in one (untested) basket is simply too much technical risk.  

In the case of ion propulsion, some medium gas is needed, which is heated by the reactor and ejected from the space stack through the engine nozzles. How long can this gas be used for?

Arrow wrote:In the case of ion propulsion, some medium gas is needed, which is heated by the reactor and ejected from the space stack through the engine nozzles. How long can this gas be used for?

7


That is not ion propulsion, but direct nuclear thermal propulsion .

It is effective only with hydrogen, but with that it has twice as high exhaust speed than the best chemical rocket.

For ion you need electricity.

25 tons. that's more examples of work smart not hard. NASA said it was a pain in the ass to land a 1 ton rover to Mars while saying the Starship is 100 times more difficult to land which means that landing the TEM will be at least 4 times easier than what Space X proposes.

The TEM will be a space tug...it won't be able to land on the surface of anything so they'll still need to design some landing and ascent module that will be able to go from low orbit to the surface and back up again and would rely on the TEM for getting shuttled between orbits.

In the case of ion propulsion, some medium gas is needed, which is heated by the reactor and ejected from the space stack through the engine nozzles. How long can this gas be used for?

As the previous poster says, the reactor will generate electricity with a turbine, which will power some form of ion / electric propulsion unit. From what I've seen, the reaction mass is supposed to be Xenon, which is inert and can be stored as a liquid at near room temperature...so it only depends on the size of the storage tanks / mass constraints of the space ship, I guess (though boil-off might be a problem if the tanks are exposed to the sun's radiation for long periods of time). IIRC they want to attempt a demonstration of a sort of in-flight refueling with Xenon for one of those missions.