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Russia's Proton Rocket, Which Predates Apollo, Will Finally Stop Flying (arstechnica.com)
The Russian-manufactured Proton rocket that has been traveling into space since before humans landed on the Moon will finally stop flying. "In an interview with a Russian publication, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said production of the Proton booster will cease as production shifts to the new Angara booster," reports Ars Technica. "No new Proton contracts are likely to be signed." From the report: First launched in 1965, the rocket was initially conceived of as a booster to fly two-person crews around the Moon, as the Soviet Union sought to beat NASA into deep space. Indeed, some of its earliest missions launched creatures, including two turtles, to the Moon and back.
The decision will bring down the curtain on one of the longest-used and most versatile rockets in world history. As the United States developed the space shuttle in the 1970s and began flying it in the 1980s, the Russian space agency saw the opportunity to commercialize the Proton rocket, and by the end of the 1990s, the booster became a major moneymaker for the Russian space industry. With a capacity of 22.8 tons to low-Earth orbit, it became a dominant player in the commercial market for heavier satellites. An increasing rate of failures, combined with the rise of SpaceX's cheaper Falcon 9 rockets, "have caused the number of Proton launches in a given year to dwindle from eight or so to just one or two," adds Ars. "This shrinking market has opened the door to the Angara rocket, which has the advantage of not using environmentally hazardous fuel for each of its stages..."
I'm wondering when Soyuz will end. It's a horribly inefficient design by modern standards, even with the updates they've been doing. No insult to Korolyov, it was a great rocket for its time... but it's time is long past.
Soyuz's payload fits in between Angara 1 and Angara 5, which is probably why they aren't yet planning to discontinue Soyuz. Like Falcon and Delta IV, Angara is built around a small common design, which can be used as a side-mounted booster for heavier payloads, except in their case, they're strapping four boosters around the central core instead of one, to make the heavy Angara 5 which is replacing Proton.
I see an opening for a two-booster Angara 3. I think it would end up being somewhere between 150% and 200% the lifting capacity of Soyuz, which makes it less than ideal as a drop-in replacement, but should be serviceable as a lineup replacement.
Of course, the continued flight of any Russian rocket (for anything but Russian military/intelligence payloads) kind of depends on them getting some form of reusability. They designed a folding-wing, horizontal-landing version of the Angara URM, but apparently they don't have the funding to actually build it.