Roscosmos Planetary Exploration Missions

Final trials of ExoMars mission to begin in March 2020

The ExoMars-2020 mission’s spacecraft is designed to deliver the Russian landing platform to Mars for placing the European rover onto the Red Planet’s surface

https://tass.com/science/1075854

Russia’s sample mission to Moon scheduled for 2026-2027

Second part of Russia’s lunar program, which envisages manned missions, is also being fulfilled

MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Russia’s Luna-28 mission to deliver samples of the Moon soil to the Earth is tentatively scheduled for launch in 2026-2027, the director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Lev Zeleny, told TASS.

"The Luna-28 and Luna-29 spacecraft are included into the next federal space program, these two projects are expected to be held before the 2029-2030. Luna-28 will bring lunar soil, Luna-29 will deliver a rover with various degrees of maneuverability and abilities to research geological samples on site," Zeleny said. "The launch of the Luna-28 mission is planned in 2026-2027."

He did not say when the Luna-29 mission may take place, because the work on rovers has only begun.

"We plan to cooperate on that with the Germany-based institute of robotics, negotiations are now under way. These rovers are expected to operate in two modes - control from the Earth and automated mode," the scientist said.

The current federal space program for 2016-2025 lists three lunar missions - two landings and one orbital flight. The first of them, Luna-25, is to be launched in 2021.

"Regretfully, for various financial and organizational reasons, the upcoming missions - Luna-26 and Luna-27, are being postponed to a later date, closer to the end of the current schedule. That said, the launch of Luna-26 is due in 2023-2024, and of Luna-27 - in 2024-2025, although we are still trying to reschedule Luna-27 for 2023-2024. Those missions were postponed, because Luna-25 was rescheduled from 2019 to 2021," Zeleny said.

He said the second part of Russia’s lunar program, which envisages manned missions, is also being fulfilled.

"But this is not our zone of responsibility, and I’m not authorized to speak about the timeframe," the Russian scientist added.

According to him, Russia’s program of Moon exploration is currently being agreed by relevant ministries and agencies.

https://tass.com/science/1081926

Roscosmos sets task of drafting Venus exploration program

KHIMKI, January 31. /TASS/. Roscosmos has set a task of drafting a Venus exploration program similar in scale to Russia’s lunar program. The new program will incorporate the project Venera-D, the leading designer of the Lavochkin Research and Industrial Association, Dmitry Khmel said.

"Roscosmos has set a task of shaping such a program. It will incorporate Venera-D. The Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute supports this idea. We are working on drafts for taking further steps to explore Venus," Khmel said.

https://tass.com/science/1115161

Russia completes firing tests of propulsion unit for ExoMars lander

ExoMars is a joint program of the European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos federal space agency to study Mars set for July-August 2020

MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. The propulsion unit of the ExoMars lander module has passed firing tests, the Lavochkin Research and Production Association said in a statement on Tuesday.

"As part of implementing the ExoMars international project, the firing tests of the propulsion unit of the ExoMars spacecraft’s lander were completed on February 27, 2020," the statement runs.

According to the preliminary analysis, the assignments were fulfilled with positive results, the Lavochkin press office reported.

ExoMars is a joint program of the European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos federal space agency to study Mars. The mission will be launched in July-August 2020 by a Proton-M carrier rocket with a Briz-M booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The project aims to study the Martian surface, its atmosphere and climate.

https://tass.com/science/1126123

The-thing-next-door wrote:Why are they cooperating with the euros, the euros will insist on the use of european made components designed by some random housewife or zoo animal because the liberals cannot alow the employment of men and this will result in rockets exploding left right and centre.

Russian cosmonauts could die due to the involvement of inferior minds in thier space program.

There is no human space flight involved. And Russia will not depend on any EU-tard components. This is just a joint science mission.
In other words, some diplomatic window dressing. Russia does not base its space sector on such activity.

But there is too much of such diplomacy. Russia has loose plans to restart Venus exploration. They should make this a national
priority. It involves developing high temperature electronics technology using silicon nitride and similar. So the lander can operate
for 24 hours before failing from being in a 700 K atmosphere. This sort of unique technology would be useful for Russian
military capability.

ExoMars 2020 will result in Russia having a workable lander design for Mars surface science missions (even if they have to replace some of the Eurotrash components with domestic equivalents). Add on a cruise stage and they have all they need for their own Mars planetary science campaign.

Sounds like a good result to me.

Big_Gazza wrote:ExoMars 2020 will result in Russia having a workable lander design for Mars surface science missions (even if they have to replace some of the Eurotrash components with domestic equivalents). Add on a cruise stage and they have all they need for their own Mars planetary science campaign.

Sounds like a good result to me.

Russia does not need such science missions to develop its technology. And this science mission is not any sort of charity for Russia.
It is an actual science mission and the EU is leveraging Russian launch capability that it does not have. Nobody forced the EU
to sign an agreement with Russia. It was free to partner up with the yanquis. But the yanquis are in a crisis and their launch costs
are certifiably insane. For example, to launch a mission to Mars costs over $340 million US. And I am talking about missions from over
10 years ago. Russia can send the same payload to Mars on the same trajectory for $60 million. Most of the US cost is gouged by NASA
for "flight control" services.

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

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



Russia Finds Defects in Mars, Telecom Rockets – Vedomosti

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/11/russia-finds-defects-in-mars-telecom-rockets-vedomosti-a69583
https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2020/03/10/824854-dvuh-raketah-nositelyah?utm_campaign=vedomosti_public&utm_content=824854-dvuh-raketah-nositelyah&utm_medium=social&utm_source=telegram_ved

Russia has detected defective parts in its Proton-M rockets that were set to launch Europe’s first rover on Mars and two communications satellites, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday.

The launch of Russia’s Express 80 and Express 103 satellites on one Proton-M rocket has now been rescheduled for late May instead of March due to the defective parts, the Khrunichev Space Center which builds the rockets announced Tuesday. Another Proton-M is still reportedly due to carry the Russian-European ExoMars-2020 rover to Mars in July.

Both Proton-Ms were revealed to contain defective bolts which made the rockets less durable, Vedomosti cited an unnamed source at Khrunichev as saying.

The latest revelation follows a series of Proton launch failures over the past decade and the discovery of 71 defective Proton rocket engines in 2016. The blunders threw the reliability of the Russian space industry into question.

Vedomosti’s source said that the Roscosmos space agency’s 450-million-ruble ($7.2 million) quality control inspection program for 2019-22 has helped avoid potential tragedies with the launches of flawed rockets.

The ExoMars mission is still expected to launch this July because the defective parts should be replaced within 45 days, according to Vedomosti.

Khrunichev announced Tuesday that it formed a special commission to find and punish those responsible for the flaw.

Sucks that the SpaceNews article couldn't resist including a propaganda claim...

"The unprecedented size and complexity of the parachute system is related to the lander provided by Roscosmos.  A more powerful retropropulsive system on the lander would have allowed the mission to require only one main chute, according to Spoto."

That is total BULLSHIT.  I doubt that the lander and rover combo is heavier than the US Curiosity rover and its "sky-crane" delivery system, so if NASA could get their chutes designed correctly, why can't the Euros?   Regarding the nonsense about more powerful engines, the parachutes only operate in the unpowered portion of the re-entry where speed needs to be dissipated before the descent engines can start.  The engines only fire once the parachutes have done their job - at which point the chutes needs to be jettisoned otherwise they would foul the vehicle.

How typical.  Conceal the failings of the Eurotrash and somehow connive a way to Blame Russia....

What a dirty pack of dishonest s.

Speaking of obvious solutions here is another one that would have kept Roskosmos from making idiots of themselves yet again: use better thrusters

Yup.  The technically illiterate always swallow the BS they are fed.... Well, maybe I'm being unfair to PD, but that comment is simply nonsense.

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...

Probably hiding the tin of petrol under his coat....

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.

He is frustrated... and seems to be trying to be realistic... when everyone looks on the bright side then everything is OK and nothing needs to be changed or fixed... and realistically everything changes... new materials, new designs, new ways of doing things to make it simpler and easier and fool proof.


My experience in the workforce tells me there are aholes and idiots everywhere, and sometimes the company does things because that is the way they have always done them and they never really thought long and hard as to why.

You can have dozens of different door handle designs on a door, and if the door opens in and out then something big and easy to grab makes sense, but if the door can only open by pushing it a great big bar handle that is easy for everyone to use will result in a lot of people trying to pull the door open... on finding it wont pull open they will normally look more carefully at the door for a push sign or just try to push instead. The large bar handle might be a requirement that enables people using crutches to walk to get a solid grip on the door for balance while they open it because they can't put weight on both crutches and the door at the same time... and that is fine, but that means the door needs a push sign to make it clear how to use it. From a design perspective the ideal solution is a push plate... a flat piece of metal where you push the door to open it... it is not ambiguous as there is no way to pull the door open and indeed when carrying stuff with both hands full you can immediately see the door opens with a push so you can turn around and use your ass to push open the door to go through... flat plates are simple and relatively cheap, for the users there is no need for a sign to say push because it is obvious and there is no way you could mistakenly try to misuse the control to pull open the door as that would be difficult without a powerful magnet. Push plates are easy to keep clean... just wipe them down with some anti septic liquid or spray...

What I am trying to say is that there is good design simple and cheap and easy and there is OK design that needs signs so everyone knows how to operate... the ideal is good simple design but that is not always possible... and then there are those that are wilfully trying to break things anyway...

The problem is that at the decision level of a company the guy that makes the decisions might be an idiot or an ahole or both, or maybe he or she is neither but never really thought about it because that is the way they always did it....

BTW just because I don't agree with someone about something does not mean I don't like them. I am not such an ego maniac to think I am always right and therefore everyone who has a different opinion is not just wrong but is being wrong on purpose to oppose me... you know... the way America thinks Russia wont agree with them regarding china and iran and cuba because they have something against america... Russia simply does not agree with America when America is wrong, but America thinks a friend is someone who will back you up even when you are wrong and doing bad things, but in actual fact a real friend would take you aside and tell you you are wrong and you need to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Most of the worst things America does is not for the good of 350 million Americans... the worst things they do benefits the 1% of Americans that make money from war or drugs or other shit that is clearly bad... and it is going to bite the US in the ass and has already been doing so over the last few decades where people have seen the propaganda against communism change to just pro US propaganda that is against rivals and fair competition...

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.