Russia Says Next-Gen Spacecraft Design Ready

The next generation of Russian spacecraft will be ready for test flights by 2017, according to Energia President Vitaly Lopota. '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. Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin says the new ship would be built by 2018 and would be able to conduct missions to the International Space Station and the Moon.

Comments

Re:Been there done that

[moderators_are_w*nke]

At least they're trying - NASA can't even make it to the ISS since the shuttle got decommisioned.

I've lost count

[DerekLyons]

I've lost count of how many "next generation" the Russians have announced as being "practically ready" or terms amounting to the same thing.

Not to mention the article is silent on whether this is actually a new design or a new iteration of the Soyuz. If it's the former, then we're likely looking at yet more Russian vaporware. The latter actually might come to pass.

Re:I've lost count

[tp1024]

There is one difference ever since the price of oil approached and then surpassed (for some time) $100 per barrel after 2005 or so: those claims are backed up with money for the first time since the end of the the Soviet Union.

Paper spacecraft

[benjfowler]

Paper (or Powerpoint) spacecraft and launch systems are a dime a dozen.

Even when they DO tool up their factories and begin production, they need to get on top of their industries' QA issues as well. I would think that the somewhat less-than-stellar track record of their newer systems (e.g. Briz-M), suggests that they have a lot of work to do.

Giant Putin Head

[mumblestheclown]

I'm guessing it's a Giant Putin Head with frickin lasers. Amirite?

les miserables

[drankr]

Some poor folk would rather see no progress in space exploration than have Russians get us there. I pity those folks from the bottom of my heart - and fingers crossed for Russians, and anyone else willing to invest money, knowledge, experience and time into these projects. Good luck!

Re:Been there done that

[Jafafa Hots]

Not really.
You have to understand the Russian process. They announce things like this at least twice a year.

This is not a program, it's a proposal. Every year they trot out a couple of proposals (remember klipr?) and see if they can get interest and funding.

If not (and so far "not" has always been the case) then they go back to the drawing board and make another proposal in 8 or 12 months.

Over and over.

And each time Slashdot and others announce what the Russians "are building," never stopping to notice that all of the previous plans that were "nearing completion" never even resulted in a single piece of flight hardware.

Just watch. This will go nowhere, and next year there will be a different plan for a different vehicle.

Re:Been there done that

[crazyjj]

This is not a program, it's a proposal. Every year they trot out a couple of proposals (remember klipr?) and see if they can get interest and funding.

If not (and so far "not" has always been the case) then they go back to the drawing board and make another proposal in 8 or 12 months.

Over and over

Pretty much everything you just said could be said about NASA too. How many times have they promised return trips to the moon and men on Mars over the decades?

Just watch. This will go nowhere, and next year there will be a different plan for a different vehicle.

Again, ditto for NASA's moon and Mars programs.