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Russia Working on Soyuz Replacement
Buran writes "The Associated Press is reporting that RKK Energia is starting design work on a new manned spacecraft able to carry a crew of six (or more) to the International Space Station. The vehicle may have a reusable crew module (current Soyuz TMA and Progress vehicles are disposable) and would theoretically finally allow ISS crew size to increase, as the current limiting factor is the capacity of the Soyuz spacecraft, designed in the early 1960s for manned lunar flights. (While Soyuz never flew to the Moon, its Zond circumlunar variant did so several times, and Soyuz and Progress craft have been resupplying various space stations for over three decades.) It will be interesting to see how this develops, as at present ISS crews spend more time maintaining the station than they do performing research, due to the fact that the station wasn't designed to operate with a crew as small as two or three people."
i think they are... its called an Automatic Transfer Vehiclen dex.html
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/ATV/i
Full article text can be found here
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Look here (thanks to the beeb) for a timeline of Mir's history.
If the ISS survives the problems that Mir had, it will be doing quite well.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
You mean this space elevator?
Russians have been designing larger and possibly reuseable Soyuz-type spacecrafts for long time. The original mission was ferrying military cosmonauts to Almaz and Polya military space stations. A later design was Zarya resusable space craft to be launched with Zenit booster. Project was cancelled on financial grounds back in 1989, but the technology has been further developed in connection with ISS and Sea Launch projects.
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Buran/Energia
From the site:
The modular Energia design could be used for payloads of from 10 to 200 tonnes using various combinations of booster stages, numbers of modular main engines in the core stage, and upper stages. The version with two booster stages was code-named Groza; with four booster stages, Buran; and the six-booster stage version retained the Vulkan name. The 7.7 meter diameter of the core was determined by the maximum size that could be handled by existing stage handling equipment developed for the N1 programme. The 3.9 meter diameter of the booster stages was dictated by the maximum size for rail transport from the Ukraine.
Propellant selection was a big controversy. Use of solid propellants in the booster stages, as used in the space shuttle, was considered again. But Soviet production of solid fuel motors had been limited to small unitary motors for ICBM's and SLBM's. There was no technological base for production of segmented solid fuel motors, and transport of the motor sections also presented problems. The final decision was to use the familiar Lox/Kerosene liquid propellants for the boosters. In the 1960's Glushko had favoured use of toxic but storable chemical propellants in launch vehicles and had fought bitterly against Korolev over the issue. It is surprising that he now accepted use of Lox/Kerosene. But Korolev was dead, and the N1 a failure. Glushko's position had been vindicated, perhaps he now had to agree objectively that use of the expensive and toxic propellants in a launch vehicle of this size was
not rational.
You can't handle the truth.
There is a project that russians were working on awhile back. It is shuttle like and was tested number of times during cold war. I suppose most of people here wouldn't know about it ala Lunokhod.
New project based on that technology is MAKS (mnogocelevaya aviacionno-kosmicheskaya sistema) which claims to be able to reduce cost per kilogram down to 1K usd. (from 12-15 nowdays). It's not space elevator, but definitely more possible at this time.
Read about Buran and MAKS here -
http://www.buran.ru/
-- shortcut - the longest distance between two points.
..for those curious about such things *smiles*:
Soyuz 7K-L1A circumlunar
Soyuz 7K-L1A test article
Soyuz 7K-L1E circumlunar test article
Soyuz 7K-L1P prototype, boilerplate capsule
Soyuz 7K-LOK planned lunar orbiter
You might also be interested in reasing baout the Soviet Lunar Lander and the launchsystem they hoped to use. Had everythng gone as planned they could have reached the moon around the same time as the americans... but since their booster just wouldn't work right they lagged behind until they decided to cancell the whole program.
The site I've pulled those links from also has a number of interesting articles on the N1 program, the various soviet manned lunar programs and wether the design of the Soyuz was stolen from the US.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Get a clue.
Read some actual reports on Russian economy
Russia still has regions living in extreme poverty, but as an overall economy it has had a year on year GDP grouth of 7+ for the third year running. So in fact economically, it has no problem in affording it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
They had an airseal intergrity failure during reentry in the 70s
This is not a signature.
The ISS was designed to perform scientific experiments in microgravity, a condition which is naturally not present on the moon. A space elevator is totally infeasible at the moment. It is absolutely safe to predict that none of us will see such an installation realized in her or his lifetime.
Well, the US has deep pockets and has been actively funding the Russian space program for years through subcontracting.
Komarov died in Soyuz-1 on descent; the parachute failed to open. This had been fixed.
Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsaev died on descent because the outer atmospheric valve opened too early, and the cosmonauts were only wearing shirts. This had been fixed in two ways: the valve had been reworked, and everybody now must wear light spacesuits during liftoff and descent.
Accidents are unavoidable. If one is too afraid of risk, he won't accomplish anything. As a russian proverb says, "one who does not take risks does not drink champaigne."
How many people have died in the Soyuz? None!
According to this article in Wikipedia, the official deathtoll for the spaceprogmans are 18 astronauts in flight, 11 astronauts in training and at least 70 groundcrew in launch pad accidents.
we know that NASA has lost 14 astronauts in flights and 3 in training - so logic dictates that the USSR lost 4 kosmonauts in flight and another 8 in training. One life was lost on Soyuz 1, and a further three on Soyuz 11.
What might be more interesting is that no kosmonauts has died in space since 1971, despite the fact that the russians have way more actuall hours spendt in space than the americans. This suggests that the design of the Soyuz is either safer in it self or that the russian spaceprogram is willing to learn from it's mistakes...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Your referring to Buran (snowstorm).
The French had a mini shuttle called Hermes, designed to fly on the front of Ariane.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Well, it was actually 'fixed' before that mission, when the crew wore space suits. The reason they didn't for that mission was that with three people on board they just couldn't fit the extra bulk of the space suits of the era. They wanted (for political reasons) to fly a three man mission and the expedient was to just cram them in regardless of the risks.
So it was a gamble brought on by political pressure that didn't pay off. (That and the fact that the valve was badly designed. The manual shut off handle took two minutes to close the valve, but the craft bled off air at a much faster rate. It wasn't supposed to be open anyway.)
Stefan Axelsson
Wrong. ISS can't accomodate more than three long-term residents at this point due to limitations on the life support system, the habitation requirements, the lack of an adequate supply chain (Progress is a nice vehicle but the upmass isn't large enough) and evacuation requirements.
ISS can handle several astronauts. The number of crew actually on the station depends on the capacity of the craft that would ferry them down in case of an emergency. Right now, that's a Soyuz docked to the station. Normally, that would equate to a crew of 3, but the rollback on supply capacity following the Shuttle's grounding requires a smller crew.
Why would you want to tether the station to either the Earth of the moon?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
That's the civilian budget, I expect that a lot of spending is hidden in the military budget - in the finest tradition of aerospace industries.
Russia still sends payloads into orbit from Plesetsk, almost all of them military. It's currently extending the complex to handle the new Angara rocket to replace the Proton which can only be fired out of Baikanur in Kazakhstan.
Best wishes,
Mike.
I have to disagree with you there. The Space Elevator is feasible, thanks to carbon nanotubes (make that, double walled carbon nanotubes, because the single wall variety pops when exposed to bright flashes of light). Engineering marvels are always just around the corner.
Work is already progressing on new drive systems. The Deep Space 1 spacecraft was a testbed for autonomous navigation systems and for ion drive propulsion, which uses electricity and xenon gas to accelerate a spacecraft. Unlike the TIE (Twin Ion Engine) Fighters of Star Wars, a real ion engine provides a gentle push, comparable to the force exerted by a sheet of paper resting on your palm -- but it does it over an extremely long period of time, so the ion engine is extremely well suited to long interplanetary missions.
Nuclear engines are also in the works, those projects having begun in the 1970s (NERVA - Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) and continuing today with concepts and development starting for possible use in manned lunar/Mars missions as well as nuclear-powered spacecraft for planetary exploration (the Jupiter Inner Moons Orbiter -- JIMO -- for instance.)
Reader note: Sorry for taking so long to answer questions in this story -- it hit the site while I was asleep!
i am a soviet space shuttle
Utterly false. The Iran non-proliferation law prevents this. There was a one time exception made for the FGB (Zarya). Such things are very much the exception, not the rule.
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