Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #4

Further on the aerospike demonstrator, here is the 2021 public trial (apparently using low flow rates of hydrocarbon fuel ?) compared to this recent test with hydrolox propellents.

Huge difference...  Those are seriously more robust propellent lines.



Video showing short footage of engine firing, starting at 0:27

The talk about an SSTO from such an engine as in the above video methinks is overblown. The theoretical ideal efficiency increase would be
about a factor of two mostly from the low altitude stage flight stage. But this is not enough to make SSTO cheap and easy. Also, the theoretical ideal efficiency boost is not reached in any prototype.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/aerospike/losses.shtml

kvs wrote:The talk about an SSTO from such an engine as in the above video methinks is overblown.    The theoretical ideal efficiency increase would be
about a factor of two mostly from the low altitude stage flight stage.    But this is not enough to make SSTO cheap and easy.   Also, the theoretical ideal efficiency boost is not reached in any prototype.  

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/aerospike/losses.shtml

If you can't create an SSTO, you can put these engines on the first stage. Or create an exoatmospheric aircraft that can fly at an altitude of 50-80 kilometers.

So, launches from Russian cosmodromes over the past few weeks:
1. October 10 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Glonass-K1 No. 17L Russia VKS of Russia Plesetsk 43/3 Successful
2. October 12 Proton-M/DM-03 Angola AngoSat-2 Angola AngoSat Baikonur 81/24 Successful
3. October 15 Angara-1.2/AM Russia EMKA-3 (Cosmos-2560) Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 35/1 Successful
4. October 21 Soyuz-2.1v/Volga Russia Kosmos-2561 and Kosmos-2562 Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/4 Successful
5. October 22 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate
-Russia Gonets-M No. 33
-Russia Gonets-M No. 34
-Russia Gonets-M No. 35
-Russia Skif-D No. 11L
Russia Roscosmos Vostochny 1C Successful
6. October 26 Soyuz-2.1a Russia Progress MS-21 Russia Roscosmos Baikonur 31/6 Successful
7. November 2 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Cosmos Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/? Successful

Scorpius wrote:So, launches from Russian cosmodromes over the past few weeks:
1. October 10 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Glonass-K1 No. 17L Russia VKS of Russia Plesetsk 43/3 Successful
2. October 12 Proton-M/DM-03 Angola AngoSat-2 Angola AngoSat Baikonur 81/24 Successful
3. October 15 Angara-1.2/AM Russia EMKA-3 (Cosmos-2560) Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 35/1 Successful
4. October 21 Soyuz-2.1v/Volga Russia Kosmos-2561 and Kosmos-2562 Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/4 Successful
5. October 22 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 33
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 34
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 35
         -Russia Skif-D No. 11L
   Russia Roscosmos Vostochny 1C Successful
6. October 26 Soyuz-2.1a Russia Progress MS-21 Russia Roscosmos Baikonur 31/6 Successful
7. November 2 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Cosmos Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/? Successful

Yet no Liana and only 1 Glonass K

limb wrote:

Scorpius wrote:So, launches from Russian cosmodromes over the past few weeks:
1. October 10 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Glonass-K1 No. 17L Russia VKS of Russia Plesetsk 43/3 Successful
2. October 12 Proton-M/DM-03 Angola AngoSat-2 Angola AngoSat Baikonur 81/24 Successful
3. October 15 Angara-1.2/AM Russia EMKA-3 (Cosmos-2560) Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 35/1 Successful
4. October 21 Soyuz-2.1v/Volga Russia Kosmos-2561 and Kosmos-2562 Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/4 Successful
5. October 22 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 33
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 34
         -Russia Gonets-M No. 35
         -Russia Skif-D No. 11L
   Russia Roscosmos Vostochny 1C Successful
6. October 26 Soyuz-2.1a Russia Progress MS-21 Russia Roscosmos Baikonur 31/6 Successful
7. November 2 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Cosmos Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/? Successful

Yet no Liana and only 1 Glonass K

Wut? 7x successful starts in a little over 3 weeks and you are whining that it wasn't even more?

If it was raining gold coins you'd complain that they hit you on the head.

GLONASS is fully populated with backups... why do you think they need to launch more GLONASS satellites?

Replacing them when they need replacing makes more sense than just launching for the sake of launching.

It is a good thing they don't have to launch more than one over that period... shows they are lasting longer and doing a better job.

Not exactly news, I think it was widely anticipated given the Kazakhs are again dragging ther feet on the Baiterek project and updating the Zenit pad.

Roskosmos confirmed the postponement of the Soyuz-5 test

August 10, 2022, AviaStat.ru - The head of the Ministry of Digital Development of Kazakhstan, Bagdat Musin, and the general director of Roscosmos , Yuri Borisov , during negotiations at Baikonur , noted the need to shift the dates for the start of the first test launch to 2024 under the Baiterek project

.....

At the end of June, the Kazakh minister reported that the construction of the Baiterek complex at Baikonur for launching Soyuz-5 rockets had been moved due to the preparation of technical documentation, work would begin at the end of 2022 and should have been completed by August 2023, since it was planned to be in time test and launch the first Soyuz-5 before the end of the year.

source

The next satellite of the GLONASS system (Glonass-M #61) was launched today from Plesetsk.

Wut? 7x successful starts in a little over 3 weeks and you are whining that it wasn't even more? Suspect

If it was raining gold coins you'd complain that they hit you on the head.

better 5 liana satellites than 15 kosmos ones. Liana is 500 times more needed, because without it, Nato ships and ukrainian troop movements are very difficult to be targeted. Russia has not even 20% of Legenda coverage. China already has a Liana equivalent system fully built since early 2010s and is constantly being built up as of now.

China, due to its elites neoliberal being backstabbers completely ok with submitting to the rules based order, is refusing to link up beidou to glonass, so glonass should be #1 priority, not random comm or sabotage satelites. #2 priority is Liana.

Its good that 2 glonass were launched this year. Glonass needs to have at least 4-5m accuracy in the northern hemisphere even if 50% of its working satellites have been shot down.

better 5 liana satellites than 15 kosmos ones. Liana is 500 times more needed, because without it, Nato ships and ukrainian troop movements are very difficult to be targeted.

Why do you think you know better what they do or do not need?

Liana satellites are interesting, but if they wanted more there is nothing stopping them building and launching more.

If you think Liana would help track Ukrainian troops movements then I think you don't quite understand what Liana is for.. tracking tiny groups of Ukainian forces would be impossible for Liana... it is for tracking ships amongst milliions of other ships... not individual soldiers amongst billions of people...

Russia has not even 20% of Legenda coverage. China already has a Liana equivalent system fully built since early 2010s and is constantly being built up as of now.

Legenda is a naval system for tracking ships... there is no value in seeing the worlds oceans and everything in them if you are essentially a coastal force that occasionally sends groups of ships on expeditions to the rest of the world.

Give it a decade or two and when the Russian Navy is rather more active then more naval satellites will make sense... having them all now would be a waste of money.

China, due to its elites neoliberal being backstabbers completely ok with submitting to the rules based order, is refusing to link up beidou to glonass, so glonass should be #1 priority, not random comm or sabotage satelites. #2 priority is Liana.

There is no real value for Russia in combining Russian and Chinese sat nav systems... having two independent systems makes more sense and can be combined to get even better precision.

Its good that 2 glonass were launched this year. Glonass needs to have at least 4-5m accuracy in the northern hemisphere even if 50% of its working satellites have been shot down.

That is not how it works... when 50% of GLONASS is shot down then GPS and Gallileo and most optical and radar and other satellites will also have been destroyed and Earth orbit will become chaotic with fragments showering other satellites and taking them out too... satellites will stop working... and world wide communication will also stop working... no one will care that their location doesn't work because nothing will.

Scorpius wrote:The next satellite of the GLONASS system (Glonass-M #61) was launched today from Plesetsk.

IIRC this was the last of the Glonass-M birds, and that all future units will be Glonass-K2, which use Russian radiation-hardened components The K1 used up to 90% foreign components, so the K2 is a real success for the import substitution program following Western post-Maidan sanctions.

Yet no Liana and only 1 Glonass K

You posted this reply to this:

Scorpius wrote:
So, launches from Russian cosmodromes over the past few weeks:
1. October 10 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Glonass-K1 No. 17L Russia VKS of Russia Plesetsk 43/3 Successful
2. October 12 Proton-M/DM-03 Angola AngoSat-2 Angola AngoSat Baikonur 81/24 Successful
3. October 15 Angara-1.2/AM Russia EMKA-3 (Cosmos-2560) Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 35/1 Successful
4. October 21 Soyuz-2.1v/Volga Russia Kosmos-2561 and Kosmos-2562 Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/4 Successful
5. October 22 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate
-Russia Gonets-M No. 33
-Russia Gonets-M No. 34
-Russia Gonets-M No. 35
-Russia Skif-D No. 11L
Russia Roscosmos Vostochny 1C Successful
6. October 26 Soyuz-2.1a Russia Progress MS-21 Russia Roscosmos Baikonur 31/6 Successful
7. November 2 Soyuz-2.1b/Frigate Russia Cosmos Russia Russian Ministry of Defense Plesetsk 43/? Successful

Do you understand how to read what he posted?

Purely Russian military launches are generally secret and not always revealed to the public... all military launches are called Kosmos or Cosmos, so the launch on the 21st of October were two military satellites that were not revealed to the public... do you know what was launched in notes number 3,4, and 7?

Emka-3 is a sun synchronous military optical recon satellite for instance...

It is frustrating to see you come here complaining that this or that is not happening when it is pretty clear you don't know what is happening.

Another Soyuz launch  

Soyuz-2.1b rocket with spacecraft launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome

MOSCOW, 1 December. /TASS/. On Thursday, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with spacecraft in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. This was reported to journalists in the defense department.

"On December 1, 2022, from the Plesetsk cosmodrome (Arkhangelsk region), the combat crew of the space troops of the Aerospace Forces launched a Soyuz-2.1b medium-class launch vehicle with spacecraft in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry," the ministry said.

The previous launch of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from Plesetsk took place on November 28, when a spacecraft was put into orbit in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry.

source

They don't identify the payload but some believe it to be a Neitron reconnaissance satellite, while others assert that the orbital object has the standard orbit insertion parameters for a Lotos-S and its upper stage. Time will tell.

Military luanches dont mess around. Finally angara is being launched en masse. This looks like a bright year for russian space industry. meanwhile starlink shenanigans and Comrade Musk's problems with the ministry of of combatting misinformation are endangering spacex.

Big_Gazza wrote:They don't identify the payload but some believe it to be a Neitron reconnaissance satellite, while others assert that the orbital object has the standard orbit insertion parameters for a Lotos-S and its upper stage. Time will tell.

At the moment, it is assumed that this is a "Lotus-S" with some kind of associated payload in the form of small satellites. So far, two objects are observed in orbit - the upper stage of the rocket and the payload itself.

Lotos-S1

Russia will create a new plasma engine that will be used in deep space missions - what does it look like?, 12.17.2022.

The new engine will "need a nuclear power source" to work. Initially it will conduct "interplanetary flights, and in the future - flights to the edge of the solar system."

Russian scientists are building a new two-stage electrodeless plasma engine that will have the ability to electrically propel a spacecraft into deep space, the general director of the state-owned OKB Fakel company, Gennady Abramenkov, reported last week.

According to Abramenkov, the project of the "very high-power electric rocket motor, known as BPRD" (Russian acronym for 'electrodeless plasma rocket motor'), is being developed by the company under his charge with the scientific advice of the Kurchatov Institute.

The new engine, which "will need a nuclear power source" to work, will initially perform "interplanetary flights and, in the future, flights to the edge of the solar system."

As for its operation, Abramenkov explained that, being a plasma-based engine, this compound will flow through the central channel of the engine at high temperatures, so, "if it were not protected in any way, the entire central channel would burn out quickly or be completely consumed."

In addition, in order for the plasma to flow constantly without touching the walls of the central channel, for the purpose of creating the pushing force of the motor, these walls must be "effectively cooled", besides a high-density magnetic field must be generated inside the central channel. The official specified that the construction of the engine will take a long time, since the company is working for the first time with new physical principles and processes.

The SPD-230

On the other hand, Abramenkov announced that the tests of the new high-power stationary plasma thruster SPD-230, which was designed to significantly increase the mass of the payload put into orbit, have been completed.

"For the SPD-230, we have completed the development for the Roscosmos state corporation and the entire development test cycle," Abramenkov said, noting that the engine was completed ahead of schedule, so "there are no appliances for the engine yet," referring to the nuclear power source.

The director of OKB Fakel points out that his company is analyzing which spacecraft these new engines should be placed on, stating that they will be able to offer it "in various projects," including flights to the Moon, in order to "solve the problems" in the ships to reintroduce them into orbit. Abramenkov specified that they are studying the possibility of putting a spacecraft with stationary plasma engines into orbit without an upper stage.

OKB Fakel is considered one of the leading companies in Russia and the world in the development and manufacture of electric propulsion systems for spacecraft based on stationary plasma engines. These engines have the advantage of consuming less propellant than chemical combustion rockets, which lowers the cost of space missions. The engines they have built were installed on Russian and foreign satellite devices, including those of the GLONASS constellation.

Yandex Translate from Spanish

https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/452174-rusia-crear-motor-plasma-misiones-espacio-profundo

https://spaceref.com/newspace-and-tech/improving-the-performance-of-electrodeless-plasma-thrusters-for-space-propulsion/ i wonder how much faster they are to MPD thrusters.

That is the problem with interplanetary space flight... we send probes in the 1970s and then in the 2020s we create much more powerful and more efficient propulsion systems that could catch up and over take the probes already sent and perhaps take better readings regarding the conditions near the edge of our solar system and beyond...

A trip to Pluto and Charon would be interesting but also visiting substantial bodies in the Oort cloud would also be interesting too... such a power plant would be ideal for such a mission for testing long term operations in space, and a nuclear power plant would mean onboard systems could include radar and decent optics too...

Not really news, but worth highlighting the run of 98 succesful starts.

Borisov announced the successful completion of the launch campaign by Roscosmos

According to the CEO of the state corporation, there were 22 successful launches and 98 accident-free flights.

MOSCOW, 21 December. /TASS/. Roskosmos successfully completed the launch campaign this year, with 22 successful launches and 98 accident-free flights. This was stated by the general director of the state corporation Yuri Borisov on Wednesday on the air of the Russia-24 TV channel .

"We are finishing the year with 22 successful launches and continuing the series of accident-free flights, 98 accident-free flights," he said.

Borisov also noted that special attention will continue to be paid to "questions of the quality and reliability of the creation of rocket technology and automatic satellites."

source

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/73252

The head of Roskosmos, Borisov, said that the nearest future plans are to build 2 new plants in Russia for the mass production of satellites for various purposes.  Previously, plans were announced to significantly increase the satellite constellation, including in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry.

It is certainly good that there are such plans and that such plants will appear.  The significant backlog of the Russian Federation in terms of the number of satellites has been growing in previous years, and this has affected, among other things, the course of the SVO in Ukraine.
The moral is that the factories necessary for the country must be built on time, and not when in times of emergency.