Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

Big_Gazza wrote:

kvs wrote:The droplet cooling concept requires hauling extra mass that is dumped into space.   So it is a negative payload account from the onset.   I am not dismissing it, but in principle
if a mass conserving cooling system is viable for a 1 MW electrical powerplant, then it is the optimal solution.   Perhaps for larger systems the droplet cooling approach will
be necessary, but larger systems can carry more cargo.  

The big unknown will be the recovery efficiency of the cooling media.  The Russians have been testing the concept on the "Drop-2" testbed installed to the ISS, and has apparently passed all ground-based vacuum chamber testing.

What I want to know is what cooling media they plan to use.  It would need to have a very low vapour pressure at the operating temperatures to be able to function in a vacuum.  No good if your hot coolant flashes into vapour as soon as it hits the vacuum of deep space.  Some form of mineral oil perhaps, stripped of volatiles?

Patent on Yandex that looks to be related

https://yandex.ru/patents/doc/RU2607685C1_20170110

The liquid would have to have a high heat capacity. Then it needs to be liquid long enough to form drops. So whatever the substance it has be heated by the reactor. So it may be just plain old water
with possibly some solutes that serve some purpose or other. Water molecules have a high electric dipole moment so do not degass easily. I am sure the liquid used for drop formation will be at zero
external pressure and will flow through the piping via simple hydraulic action. So water would do the job as it would produce droplets (of all sizes) due to self attraction. The technological solution would
be to control the size of the vapour droplets. So a staged release into space where these droplets have a chance to grow from the water vapour being generated looks like the right approach.

There is no flash freezing in space. That is only BS from movies. Regulated water vapour release would do the job. But I think they would need another fluid heated by the reactor to keep the
various compartments (vents) for the water warm to prevent accumulation of ice. Using some other substance would require similar solutions.

Animation of the TEM being used in what appears to be a manned deep space vessel including an inflatable habitation compartment.  I'm not convinced on the config shown (the ion thrusters would need to be placed onto outriggers which are not shown) , but the TEM is definitely suitable as an enabler of interplanetary manned flights.

The anim does however nicely show the intended deployment of the telescoping trusses and heat exchanger panels.

As much as I am happy about the news of the century as in they are actually serious in the project to drop those images online.

Ion propulsion needs either a nuclear or solar source, you can go check different sources where they suggest 30-45 days to get to mars, no country is there just yet.

The droplet nuclear reactor or the nuclear space craft they let out in the news give estimates of 7-8 months which of course is better than chemical rockets estimating 1 year and 6 months. Just a correction for the posts I am seeing here but nevertheless this is excellent news.

kvs wrote:The droplet cooling concept requires hauling extra mass that is dumped into space.

It's not dumped into space, it's released from front "arms" and then scooped up by rear ones to be reused

Marginal loss of mass

Lithium is supposed to be used as coolant

Well Papadragon, are you happy yet or does Rogozin need to personally one up the deathstar?

The-thing-next-door wrote:Well Papadragon, are you happy yet or does Rogozin need to personally one up the deathstar?

This project predates Rogozin by half a decade and is made by Keldysh over which he has no authority over (most likely reason why it still exists)

I see that demand for that piping hot Trampoline jizz on this forum is still as strong as ever

PapaDragon wrote:
(vile profanity)

A model Serb as always I see.

What did Rogozin do? Vow to wipe out hentai with orbital lasers? Not send the Moscow circus to space?

thegopnik wrote:As much as I am happy about the news of the century as in they are actually serious in the project to drop those images online.

Ion propulsion needs either a nuclear or solar source, you can go check different sources where they suggest 30-45 days to get to mars, no country is there just yet.

The droplet nuclear reactor or the nuclear space craft they let out in the news give estimates of 7-8 months which of course is better than chemical rockets estimating 1 year and 6 months. Just a correction for the posts I am seeing here but nevertheless this is excellent news.

What!? Your numbers are nonsensical. The whole point of a 1 MWe reactor powering an ion engine is to have non-inertial travel to
Mars. The numbers only make sense if they refer to 7-8 weeks.

The-thing-next-door wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
(vile profanity)

Oh you sweet insignificant little child, if that's what you consider "vile profanity" then life will have some brutal surprises for you

The-thing-next-door wrote:A model Serb as always I see.

Careful with your time Belarusian, you should be focusing on protesting lest they find out you aren't loyal enough and tell you to pick a lamp post

The-thing-next-door wrote:What did Rogozin do?

Precisely zero, that's the problem (other than making an ass of himself and a country miserable enough to spawn him)

Also, scientific denialism and trampoline comments

The-thing-next-door wrote:wipe out hentai with orbital lasers?

No need to worry about that, Trampoline Man is too stupid to understand concept of orbit

kvs wrote:

thegopnik wrote:As much as I am happy about the news of the century as in they are actually serious in the project to drop those images online.

Ion propulsion needs either a nuclear or solar source, you can go check different sources where they suggest 30-45 days to get to mars, no country is there just yet.

The droplet nuclear reactor or the nuclear space craft they let out in the news give estimates of 7-8 months which of course is better than chemical rockets estimating 1 year and 6 months. Just a correction for the posts I am seeing here but nevertheless this is excellent news.

What!?  Your numbers are nonsensical.   The whole point of a 1 MWe reactor powering an ion engine is to have non-inertial travel to
Mars.   The numbers only make sense if they refer to 7-8 weeks.

Dont get me wrong Russia is advanced with anything missile to rocket related technology but what your asking in terms of space time travel is just a little too much.

"According to Russia's TASS news agency, Koshlakov believes that a flight to Mars using a nuclear propulsion engine is "technically feasible in the near future".

The space expert reckons it could take just over half a year for humans to travel to Mars using the nuclear system.

"[The journey] to the Moon will last several days, yes, while a flight to Mars will last about seven or eight months," said Koshlakov, speaking to the Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Roscosmos has already been testing ground trials for the engine's cooling system, which are believed to have been a success.

And the space agency also has plans to make a prototype of a "megawatt class" nuclear engine, which would be used for "flights into deep space".

http://www.parabolicarc.com/tag/vladimir-koshlakov/ This guy is the head of the Keldysh Research Center and he was the one that referred to a 7-8 month travel. Sure ion propulsion was mentioned but when it was introduced by either Roscosmos or NASA they gave a literal 1 month to 1 month in a half time frame travel to Mars. The US has not presented anything better than their chemical rockets. I have doubts Space X will get to mars because nuclear energy is a whole nother department they do not specialize in. NASA fucked themselves cutting NERVA in the past. They are talking about ideas of getting a nuclear spacecraft but no mentions of starting or project or presenting any images online that such a project is being worked.

So who is left to compete for the Mars mission? I am sure that even FEDOR(i believe they will send a robot 1st) as a robot would shit himself on a 1 month travel to mars. 7-8 months is still excellent well according to what Koshlakov is saying.

thegopnik wrote:

kvs wrote:

thegopnik wrote:As much as I am happy about the news of the century as in they are actually serious in the project to drop those images online.

Ion propulsion needs either a nuclear or solar source, you can go check different sources where they suggest 30-45 days to get to mars, no country is there just yet.

The droplet nuclear reactor or the nuclear space craft they let out in the news give estimates of 7-8 months which of course is better than chemical rockets estimating 1 year and 6 months. Just a correction for the posts I am seeing here but nevertheless this is excellent news.

What!?  Your numbers are nonsensical.   The whole point of a 1 MWe reactor powering an ion engine is to have non-inertial travel to
Mars.   The numbers only make sense if they refer to 7-8 weeks.

Dont get me wrong Russia is advanced with anything missile to rocket related technology but what your asking in terms of space time travel is just a little too much.

"According to Russia's TASS news agency, Koshlakov believes that a flight to Mars using a nuclear propulsion engine is "technically feasible in the near future".

The space expert reckons it could take just over half a year for humans to travel to Mars using the nuclear system.

"[The journey] to the Moon will last several days, yes, while a flight to Mars will last about seven or eight months," said Koshlakov, speaking to the Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Roscosmos has already been testing ground trials for the engine's cooling system, which are believed to have been a success.

And the space agency also has plans to make a prototype of a "megawatt class" nuclear engine, which would be used for "flights into deep space".

http://www.parabolicarc.com/tag/vladimir-koshlakov/ This guy is the head of the Keldysh Research Center and he was the one that referred to a 7-8 month travel. Sure ion propulsion was mentioned but when it was introduced by either Roscosmos or NASA they gave a literal 1 month to 1 month in a half time frame travel to Mars. The US has not presented anything better than their chemical rockets. I have doubts Space X will get to mars because nuclear energy is a whole nother department they do not specialize in. NASA fucked themselves cutting NERVA in the past. They are talking about ideas of getting a nuclear spacecraft but no mentions of starting or project or presenting any images online that such a project is being worked.

So who is left to compete for the Mars mission? I am sure that even FEDOR(i believe they will send a robot 1st) as a robot would shit himself on a 1 month travel to mars. 7-8 months is still excellent well according to what Koshlakov is saying.

Official talking heads in Russia routinely stick their heads into their asses. It is physically impossible for a continuous 1 MWe ion drive spacecraft to
take the same time as inertial flight. Even if the acceleration is a small fraction of "g" it adds up over the course of several weeks. There are a lot
of seconds in those weeks:

86,400 x 7 x 4 = 2,419,200

This Russian design is not going to use conventional ion thrusters. It will use MPD thrusters with a force of 200 Newtons at least.


a = 200/M where M is the mass of the spacecraft. Let's take M = 40 tons = 40,000 kg which gives
a = 0.005 m/s/s

So the velocity after 4 weeks is:

v = 0.005 * 2,419,200 = 12,096 m/s

The average velocity is 6,048 m/s = 21,772.8 km/hour

I have assumed only 50% of the trip with thrust towards Mars, this is wrong since the acceleration is small. It is more fair to talk about
8 weeks of thrust, giving 43,545.6 km/hour of average extra speed on top of the initial velocity imparted by the rocket launch from the
Earth's surface. Based on previous inertial trips, the initial velocity is around 58,000 km/hour.

The propelled flight to Mars with an average 43,546 km/hour speed on top of the 58,000 km/hour injection speed allows the selection
of a shortest path not possible with inertial guidance. If Mars did not move relative to the Earth the shortest path travel at 58,000 km/hour
would allow arrival after 39 days at the closest approach distance. This is not possible since the Earth and Mars move but movement
is not the only problem since inertial guidance requires the spacecraft to follow a chasing orbit and not the shortest path. With
propulsion at over 43,000 km/hour it is possible to reduce the distance dramatically. So the drip duration is reduced by a factor:

Z = X * Y where X is the extra speed and Y is the available reduced path fraction inverse

It just keeps getting better!  (well.... maybe not for PD...   )

A very nice animation of the TEM deployment sequence, plus what would be a very interesting presentation if one can understand spoken Russian (alas I'm just plain old monolingual).

Looks like a prototype for that

From the video (it's just some engineer who specializes in turbines, apparently, and has done some research into the literature surrounding this project):
- most of the components required are in various stages of research & development
- service life of the reactor and turbine is supposed to be around 10 years
(- in case it wasn't clear: the big panels in the middle of the ship are radiative heat exchangers with hot liquid cycling around them and transferring the heat to them while they act as a giant radiator)
- apparently the reactor in the front will actually glow like in the animation as it operates at around 1600°C and is of some new type (something about Molybdenum...didn't really understand that much but in his other videos he explains how it works; haven't watched that yet)
- extensive use of composite materials, including in the radiator, which has an approximate area of 400sqm
- one big advantage of the radiator is that almost the entire area can withstand impact from micro-meteorites (not in the same mission, obviously) without significantly endangering the functioning of the radiator...only a hit to the small amount of liquid-carrying tubes would be problematic
- probably unmanned
- looks like some new type of engine compared to previous models or a different variant

Big_Gazza wrote:It just keeps getting better!  (well.... maybe not for PD...  )

Why not?

It's a nice YouTube and I can guarantee that Trampoline Man had nothing to do with it because he is most definitely not qualified enough to use webcam (I don't he is even qualified to check his email and his Twitter privileges have been officially revoked several months ago, I posted article about it here, just scroll couple of pages back)

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/astronauts-isolate-mystery-air-leak-hunt-continues-international-space-station

One of the yanqui astronauts looks to be a head case. The holes drilled in one of the Russian components smell of sabotage in orbit and not on the ground during production.
So we have another air leak. Maybe this is innocent wear and tear but I have my doubts. It is also possible that this is some yanqui psyop.

For example, the yanquis make the air leak in one of the western sections and then use it as a pretext to temporarily occupy the Russian section. This allows them to
sabotage the Russian section during their distracting stay.

It's time Russia abandons the ISS and just goes back to the Mir program. Do it on their own. Maybe offer cooperation with other states like Iran, China and such.

Reconstruction of the Zenit launch complex at Baikonur under the Soyuz-5 will begin on October 16

source

MOSCOW, September 26. / TASS /. The Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities (TsENKI, part of Roskosmos), together with Kazakhstani builders, will begin the reconstruction of the Zenit launch pad on October 16. This is stated in the message of Roskosmos, distributed on Saturday.

In 2018, a protocol was signed on amending the agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia on the creation of the Baiterek complex at Baikonur dated December 22, 2004. It defines the obligations of the parties to the project, withdrawal from lease and transfer to the Kazakh side of the ground space infrastructure facilities of the Zenit-M complex for modernization. Kazakhstan is responsible for the creation of ground infrastructure through the modernization of the Zenit-M missile complex. Russia is developing carrier rockets Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6, which it plans to launch from there. The first start is scheduled for 2023.

The pad will be used to launch both Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6.

Big_Gazza wrote:Reconstruction of the Zenit launch complex at Baikonur under the Soyuz-5 will begin on October 16

source

MOSCOW, September 26. / TASS /. The Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities (TsENKI, part of Roskosmos), together with Kazakhstani builders, will begin the reconstruction of the Zenit launch pad on October 16. This is stated in the message of Roskosmos, distributed on Saturday.

In 2018, a protocol was signed on amending the agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia on the creation of the Baiterek complex at Baikonur dated December 22, 2004. It defines the obligations of the parties to the project, withdrawal from lease and transfer to the Kazakh side of the ground space infrastructure facilities of the Zenit-M complex for modernization. Kazakhstan is responsible for the creation of ground infrastructure through the modernization of the Zenit-M missile complex. Russia is developing carrier rockets Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6, which it plans to launch from there. The first start is scheduled for 2023.

The pad will be used to launch both Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6.

Russia should focus on building its own Soyuz-5 launch facilities. Only token amounts on refurbishment should be spent in Kazakhstan. This country
has demented anti-Russian elites who are pandering to NATzO.

kvs wrote:Russia should focus on building its own Soyuz-5 launch facilities.   Only token amounts on refurbishment should be spent in Kazakhstan.   This country
has demented anti-Russian elites who are pandering to NATzO.  

Agreed, and AFAIK the so-called "Nazabayev Launch Center" will be built using Kazakh money, not Russian. They have finally accepted the reality that Baikonur is no longer a sacred cash cow that can be used to extort money from Moscow, and if they want the status of being a space-faring nation, they need to pony up. With the advent of A-5 launches from Vostochny, Russia won't need Baikonur like it used to, and if they don't want to be owners of an increasingly derelict pile of scrap metal in the desert then the Kazakhs need to get real and stop being complete dicks. We're stuck with manned Soyuz needing to fly from Baikonour, but Roskosmos needs to fully transition to East for all other flights.

Personally I will NEVER forgive the Kazakhs for their appalling treatment of the Buran/Energia hardware. These cunts demanded ownership of the orbiters and facilities, yet then chose to let them rot and be torn apart by looters. Pitchka TK-02 was 96% ready for a manned flight, and even if she never got to fly, she should have ended up in a museum in Moscow, not covered in dirt & rat shit with her guts stripped clean by criminal gangs looking to sell her body parts on ebay.

kvs wrote:...Russia should focus on building its own Soyuz-5 launch facilities. Only token amounts on refurbishment should be spent in Kazakhstan....

I've been saying this since I signed up here

Russia needs to focus on building 4 core components of it's space program: Soyuz-5 (and derivatives), PTK-NP, Angara and Vostochniy spaceport

All other nonsense like Rogozins space tourism scams or Musk-style fashion fads are pointless distractions and must be smothered in the crib



Once they have those 4 components everything else will fall into place:

Need to launch loads of satellites of all sizes? We got the stuff to do it with

Need to send a planetary probe? We got the stuff to do it with

Need to build a space station? Or two? We got the stuff to do it with

Need to do joint project with whomever and wherever? We got the stuff to do it with

Need to send a nuclear spaceship up there? We got the stuff to do it with



Everything will be doable AFTER they finally build the tools to do it with

Gonets-M and 19x cubesats successfully launched from Plesetsk

source

MOSCOW, September 28. / TASS /. Three communication satellites "Gonets-M" and 19 more small spacecraft, launched on Monday on a rocket "Soyuz-2.1b" from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region, were launched into orbit. This was reported by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry.

"Upper stage" Fregat "put into orbit a block of spacecraft" Gonets-M "and 19 spacecraft with associated payload," the message says.

The Soyuz-2.1b rocket was launched at 14:20 Moscow time, ten minutes later the Fregat with 22 satellites separated from it. This was the first launch of the Gonets-M satellites in 2020 and the first on the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle. Prior to that, such vehicles were launched into orbit using the Rokot conversion launch vehicle.

An unusual mission given that commercial payloads were launched from the military Cosmodrome. This is the first time that Soyuz has been used to deliver Gonets birds to orbit.  All previous launches used Rockot.

Good to see Russia replacing Ukropistani hardware with all-domestic replacements.  I have no issue with the reuse of ex-military UR-100s as long as they use Russian flight controls (so I'll be happy if they deliver on all-Russian Rokot-2), but the use of technology from the Global Sedition?  No, thats a bridge too far...

I'm confused about this 'space tug' thing, appears to be ion thrusters out one end, nuclear thruster the other & whats this droplet cooling thing? (dump coolant out the front, let it radiate heat into vacuum & collect it at the rear? Sounds hard to keep most of it in the cycle)
Is there a link that gives some clear idea how it works?

hoom wrote:I'm confused about this 'space tug' thing, appears to be ion thrusters out one end, nuclear thruster the other & whats this droplet cooling thing? (dump coolant out the front, let it radiate heat into vacuum & collect it at the rear? Sounds hard to keep most of it in the cycle)
Is there a link that gives some clear idea how it works?

If you speak Russian you can watch the video series of the guy whose video was posted a few posts above this one...he's an engineer and talks about what is known and some pertinent research.
Otherwise, I'll give a brief explanation: the "nuclear thruster" is actually just a nuclear reactor that is hooked up to a turbine to generate electricity for the ion / electric thrusters at the other end (and the other systems on board the ship). In order to not blow up, the ship needs to be able to cool the nuclear reactor and since there is no large pool of water (e.g. lake) nearby and no air for some sort of conduction cooling they need to cool the cooling fluid radiatively; they do this by using that large structure in the middle where the cooling liquid is pumped through thin channels and transfers its heat through conduction to the large panels, which apparently are made of a special kind of composite material; the large panels then radiate the heat away.

So reactor at the front is to keep it as far clear of other stuff as possible, just glowing because hot not exhausting anything.
Using turbine generated electricity to run the ion engines with better thrust than 'conventional' solar panel powered ones.

I had thought it looked like the reactor was expelling exhaust in opposite direction from the ion thruster which doesn't make much sense -> confused.
Then mention of droplet cooling bit upthread -> more confused.