News Roscosmos News

[Cosmic Penguin]

Well, this could be bad:
Kazakhstan mulls ending Russia's cosmodrome lease

http://news.yahoo.com/kazakhstan-mulls-ending-russias-cosmodrome-lease-075818121.html

....and it could also end up as a win-win solution.

1. That's a sign of Kazakhstan authorities saying "We've got more money than before that we can put on Baikonur. Now show yours." to the Russians. In fact this could mean a lower rent rate to the Russians and more investments from the Kazakhs.

2. Remember that the Russians are building a new launch site in the Far East to solve exactly this issue? While work has been slow for the past few years, some significant work has progressed towards the opening of a new Soyuz launch pad in 2015. If the Kazakhs are willing to pull more money into Baikonur, the Russians will surely can get more Rubles into Vostochny and Plesetsk too.

3. Talgat Musabayev (a veteran ex-cosmonaut who spent almost a year on Mir and the ISS, BTW) actually said that if a deal is struck with the Russians to take over Baikonur, it will be done in phases, the first of which will be the Zenit launch facilities on the east side (LC-45/1, the rocket MIK at area 42 etc.). Remember that the Russians have really under-used the Zenit facilities (only 9 launches since 2004!) as the rocket is now made by Ukraine. The Kazakhs would probably be happy to use it......

So who knows, this may actually be the best way to get out of the Baikonur sovereignty issue!

 

[orb]

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Russia to develop a new-generation radar satellite:

On Dec. 17, 2012, Russian space agency, Roskosmos, solicited bids for a tender to develop a radar-carrying Obzor-R remote-sensing satellite. The new-generation spacecraft aimed to replace the Arkon-2M project, which was canceled in 2012. The agency allocated 3,604,800 thousand rubles ($116.3 million) for three years of development work ending on Nov. 25, 2015. The agency put a deadline for the submission of bids for the tender at Jan. 15, 2013, and scheduled to announce a winner on January 24.

According to the agency's assignment, Obzor-R was to carry an X-band radar for taking images of the Earth surface through cloud cover or fog abstracting the use of optical imaging systems. Roskosmos expected the spacecraft to provide data to civilian agencies for the purposes of cartography, naval navigation, geological applications, exploration of natural resources and for agriculture. The list of tasks clearly emphasized civilian purpose of the spacecraft, however Roskosmos also stressed the possibility for adding other tasks as the project developed.

{...}

Parabolic Arc: Russian Officials Not Keen on Turning Over Baikonur to Kazakhstan

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti: Energia Corp Lands $11 Mln Space Lab Contract:

MOSCOW, December 21 (RIA Novosti) - Space rocket corporation Energia has won a 350 million ruble (about $11 million) contract to design the orbital laboratory Oka-T-MKS, the state procurements agency said Friday on its website.

Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos announced a tender for the contract in mid-October and only received one bid: from Energia Corp.

The Oka-T-MKS is a multifunctional space laboratory that will operate autonomously in orbit, periodically docking with the International Space Station (ISS) whose crew will service its scientific research equipment, and conduct refueling and other operations.

The Oka will have a payload of 850 kilograms and will perform fundamental and applied research in space materials study, plasma physics, biology and medicine.

It will be able to work independently for up to 180 days after which it will need to dock with the ISS.

It was earlier planned that the Oka will be launched in 2015 but in October 2011 Roscosmos deputy head Vitaly Davydov said the project was put back by two to three years “due to the lack of concrete scientific research projects, as well as clients.”

{...}

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti:

• Russia May Join ExoMars Project in Q1 2013 – Roscosmos:

  MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA) could sign a long-anticipated agreement on Russia’s participation in a Mars research project in the first quarter of 2013, Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin said.
  
  “The agreement will be signed. We are starting financing this project,” Popovkin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper published on Wednesday.
  
  Popovkin discussed Russia’s readiness to join the project in a phone conversation with ESA head, Jean-Jacques Dorden, on December 21, and “the sides agreed to sign the agreement in the first quarter of next year.”
  
  According to Popovkin, the signing of the document was expected in November but it has been delayed due to “the complexity of official procedures adopted by ESA.”
  
  “The text of the document will be agreed ‘up to a single comma’ by January 20,” Popovkin stressed.
  
  {...}

  
  
• Russia Designs New Spaceship:

  MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russian space rocket corporation Energia has completed the technical design of a new manned spacecraft whose flight tests are due to begin in 2017, Energia President Vitaly Lopota said on Wednesday.
  
  “We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the Moon, among other places,” he said.
  
  Energia won the spaceship design tender in April 2009.
  
  Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin earlier said the new spaceship will be created by 2018 and will be able to fly not only to the International Space Station (ISS) but also to the Moon.
  
  There will be several spacecraft modifications depending on whether the flight will use a terrestrial or lunar orbit, or carry out in-flight repair and maintenance of other spacecraft and the deorbiting of malfunctioning satellites and large fragments of space debris.
  
  Earlier on Wednesday Lopota rejected as a “non-market” measure the idea of establishing an engine holding company in the domestic space industry.
  
  Popovkin previously said Russia planned to create a single holding company for booster rocket production to integrate the country’s leading space vehicle producers Khrunichev and TsSKB Progress, and also an engine-building sub-holding company to include engine makers Energomash, the Khimavtomatiki design bureau, the Voronezh mechanical works, Proton PM and other firms.
  
  Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government in summer to work out a plan to improve Russia’s space industry organizations, after a string of mishaps that he said have compromised Russia’s image as a leading space power.
  
  {...}

  
  
• Russia Launches $70 Bln Space Program for 2013-2020:

  MOSCOW, December 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will spend 2.1 trillion rubles (about $70 billion) under a state program for the development of the national space industry in 2013-2020, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.
  
  “The total volume of funding is quite significant: 2.1 trillion rubles, including extrabudgetary sources,” he said.
  
  The program is designed to ensure the country retains its position as a leading global space power, while also supporting its defense capability, and boosting economic and social development, Medvedev said.
  
  “The program will enable our country to effectively participate in forward-looking projects, such the ISS [International Space Station], the study of the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies in the solar system,” he said.
  
  {...}

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Russia to take a lead in ultraviolet astronomy:

Published: 2012 Dec. 26

The Spektr-UF spacecraft will become the third in a series of large orbital telescopes developed in the post-Soviet Russia.

Also known as World Space Observatory Ultraviolet, WSO-UV, the satellite was designed to see the sky in ultraviolet light impossible on the surface of the Earth.

The same filtering effect of the atmosphere protecting life from harmful radiation also blocks the view of dramatic phenomena playing out in the Universe in most ranges of electromagnetic spectrum, including ultraviolet, or UV.

As a result, since 1970s, the ultraviolet astronomical observations have been delegated to space observatories, orbiting the Earth beyond its atmosphere.

{...}

 

[orb]

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Russian engineers draft a super rocket:

Published: 2013 Jan. 9

From the day the Soviet shuttle program was shut down in 1992, both Western and especially Russian press has been running occasional stories about a possible revival of the majestic Energia rocket or even the winged Buran orbiter.

It was mostly a reflection of wishful thinking of the project's veterans, yet in 2012, the Russian space agency endorsed a long-term plans potentially leading toward a super-heavy launcher.

Not surprisingly, by the time the big rocket appeared on the horizon, Russian engineers had already had their sketches ready.

Along with several other industry proposals, GKNPTs Khrunichev in Moscow, the manufacturer of the Proton rocket, drafted a pair of giant launchers designated Amur-5 and Yenisei-5.

While Amur-5 was mostly a repackaged version of the Angara-100 design proposed back in 2005, Yenisei-5 featured a radically different approach. The concept was formulated as early as 2008.

{...}

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Russian engineers draft a super rocket:

​

For those who want to know the real story, the rocket is the son (or daughter? I never knew what gender rockets are exactly :lol of Energia, with the payload now sitting on top and the core stage now using three (instead of four) RD-0120 "SSME-ski" engines. Would be cool if the Russians have a need and the ability to build it!

 

[orb]

Parabolic Arc: Russia Plays Follow the Leader on Heavy-Lift Vehicles:

{...}

The two launch vehicle concepts under consideration, being promoted by Khrunichev and rival RSC Energia, are called Yenisei-5 and Sodruzhestvo, respectively. The vehicles are designed to send Russia’s six-person Soyuz spacecraft, the awkwardly named Prospective Piloted Transport System (PPTS), and other payloads on missions to the moon, Mars and deep space. PPTS is, in fact, a response to America’s Orion spacecraft and deep-space exploration plans.

{...}

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Russia to try new space architecture in Vostochny

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti: Russia to Launch Lunar Mission in 2015

Discovery News: Russia Plans for a Spaceship After Soyuz

 

[orb]

RussianSpaceWeb.com: Proton prepares to rehabilitate itself in 2013:

Following a successful launch of the Rockot booster Tuesday, the stage is set for the return to flight of the Proton rocket, Russia's commercial workhorse. Rockot and Proton use a similar upper stage from the Briz (Breeze) family, whose abnormal performance doomed two Proton missions last year.

The version of the upper stage known as Briz-KM worked successfully in the Jan. 15 Rockot mission, boosting confidence in the performance of a larger Briz-M stage during an upcoming mission of the Proton rocket. However the Rockot's flight profile does not require a kind of endurance experienced by Briz during a typical Proton mission. The engine onboard Briz-M has to fire four times longer than a similar engine onboard Rockot's Briz-KM.

A prolonged multiple firings of Briz-M in the last Proton mission of 2012 became a contributing factor to the failure of the stage's propulsion system. As a result, Russian engineers are devising corrective measures to ensure that Briz' propulsion system would withstand all rigors of the flight.

Officials at GKNPTs Khrunichev, the prime contractor on Proton, Briz and Rockot vehicles, hoped to resume Proton launches at the beginning of the second quarter of 2013. In total, as many as 12 Proton missions were expected during the year. Although exact dates of launches had still remained uncertain as of mid-January, Khrunichev's officials narrowed down a list of six international commercial payloads and their launch order in the flight manifest for 2013. In addition to commercial missions, three or four payloads for the Russian federal space program were expected to fly on Proton during the year. Two or three of federal missions were scheduled for the summer. Finally, three additional commercial payloads were booked for Proton in 2013 with an exact order of their launches yet to be determined.

{...}

 

[orb]

Parabolic Arc: Kazakhstan Limits Russian Rocket Launches from Baikonur

 

[Alfastar]

Found this

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/gla.html

Looks interesting.

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti: No Crisis in the Russian Space Industry – Roscosmos Head:

MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti) – Despite a number of failures in the past few years, rumors of a crisis in the Russian space industry are “absolutely wrong,” Federal Space Agency Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin said on Tuesday.

“This is absolutely wrong,” Popovkin said at a scientific meeting in memory of a leading Soviet rocket engineer and designer Sergei Korolyov. “We still have the potential, the people who believe in space and… rocket and space enterprises capable of breakthrough projects.”

{...}

Space Daily: Official: No crisis in Russia's space work

 

[SiberianTiger]

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti: Russia Starts Designing Launch Pad for Amur Rocket:

MOSCOW, March 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia began designing a new launch pad for the Amur heavy carrier rocket at the Vostochny Space Center that is currently under construction in the Amur Region in the country’s Far East, the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) reported on Friday.

Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin led a staff meeting at the agency that focused on the results of space industry development in 2012 and the tasks facing the agency and the space and rocket industries in 2013.

Popovkin said construction of the Vostochny infrastructure and technological facilities is underway.

{...}

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti: Roscosmos Plans to Join NASA in Asteroid Capture Mission

 

[orb]

Parabolic Arc:

• Angara Launch Slip Slides into 2014 — Maybe
  
  
• Putin Visits Vostochny, Discusses Future of Russian Space Program

Slate - Bad Astronomy: Putin Announces $50 Billion Toward Space Program

Aviation Week: Putin Says Russia To Launch First Manned Space Flight From Its Soil In 2018

 

[Urwumpe]

Come on... Can't they just launch Angara to prove that it really exists? It is almost Vaporware now.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

And to think they canned the Energia-M for Angara.
(existing parts, tooling and knowledge base for an unknown).

[sarcasm]Oh wait... They're not alone at doing that are they?[/sarcasm]

Actually that's really not fair of me to say that. They have the same type budget problems that any government has (no bucks, no Buck Rogers). I do wish them success with Angara, and I was sad to hear that thr RUS was cancelled.

 

[santy86]

I think the russian space program (future launcher and spacecraft(s)) is being developed in secret (something similar is happening for the USAF X-37A/B/C) probably they are worried of possible sabotages and/or espionage.

 

[N_Molson]

I think the russian space program (future launcher and spacecraft(s)) is being developed in secret (something similar is happening for the USAF X-37A/B/C) probably they are worried of possible sabotages and/or espionage.

You are kidding, relieve me ? :dry: