Contract Signed for Development of Amur Launch Vehicle Complex

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — State Corporation Roscosmos and Rocket and Space Center Progress (part of the State Corporation Roscosmos) on October 5, 2020 signed a state contract for preliminary design on the topic “Creation of a space rocket complex with a medium-class carrier rocket Amur at liquefied natural gas ”.

The aim of this work will be to design a new commercially oriented space rocket complex with a booster rocket operating on liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen. The new rocket will have a reversible first stage and reusable liquid engines. Their development has already been underway at the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau (part of the NPO Energomash integrated structure of the Roscosmos State Corporation, Voronezh) since 2016.

The maximum commercial orientation of the project allows us to say that for the first time in the domestic cosmonautics, the design of a launch vehicle is carried out at a given cost of the final launch service.

The Amur medium-class launch vehicle will have a number of technical features that best meet global trends and developers’ requirements. In particular, in the design of the rocket, the possibility of using advanced technical solutions and materials will be worked out: deep throttling of the second stage, an enlarged nose fairing, fuel tanks made of composite materials, the use of new alloys, etc.

According to preliminary calculations, the complex being created can begin providing flight tests as early as 2026. It is intended to carry out a phased replacement of the existing family of Soyuz-2 launch vehicles.