MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — Director General of the Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, part of the Roscosmos State Corporation) Dmitry Baranov summed up the results of the enterprise’s work in 2021 and spoke about plans for the future.
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MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — On January 25, 2022, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin spoke about promising projects Roscosmos and its subsidiaries at Academic readings on cosmonautics (Korolev’s Readings 2022).
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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The Long Beach Harbor Commission has unanimously approved a two-year lease with SpaceX for Elon Musk’s company to use a marine terminal for the recovery of Falcon 9 first stages.
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MOSCOW (Roscosmos PRs) — Roscosmos management headed by its Director General Dmitry Rogozin together with the specialists from Russian space industry enterprises, as well as S7 Space company, estimated the amount of work required to get the Odyssey sea launch platform ready for Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6 perspective carrier rocket launches. The launch vehicles are currently being designed in Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, part of Roscosmos).
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Vladimir Koshlakov, head of the Keldysh Research Center, recently revealed details about a project by Energomash and S7 Space to develop a reusable launch vehicle, TASS reports.
“Recently, we had a conference on present-day problems of rocket engine-building. [S7 Space head Sergei] Sopov delivered a speech. He said: we need engines that can be switched on about 100 times,” Koshlakov said, adding that the question of how many launches will be optimal remains open.
According to the official, the rocket’s “cooldown” period should not exceed 48 hours.
“In other words, a rocket blasts off, then returns and is ready for the next launch with the same engine within 48 hours,” he said. “Here are the requirements set by the market.”
S7 Space, which purchases the assets of bankrupt Sea Launch, is developing a reusable rocket based on the design of the Soyuz-5 booster that NPO Energia is developing to launch the Russia’s new crewed Federatsiya spacecraft.
by Douglas Messier
Managing Edior
Over the past few years, I’ve been keeping track of Russia’s annual launch failures. For reasons I can’t quite recall, the table I’ve used only went back to 2009.
Recently, I saw a graphic on a Russian website about launch failures, and I realized I hadn’t gone back far enough. So, I dug into the records of the last 30 years from 1988 through 2017, which covers Russia and the last four years of the Soviet Union.
And holy crap! There were a helluva lot of them. Launch failures are not a bug in the system, they’re a feature.
Sea Launch always pinned their failures on one technical issue or another. This exclusive photo shows the real cause.
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It seems you can’t keep a mediocre rocket down.
Sea Launch is coming back. After weathering a bankruptcy and a period of involuntary hibernation, new owners are bringing the troubled launch provider back to life for the third time.
“Work is underway to end the conservation of the complex and to restore launch activities with the use of Zenit carrier rockets in the current configuration until 2023,” S7 told Sputnik International.
Since making its first launch in 1999, Sea Launch has compiled a record of 32 successes, 3 failures and 1 partial failure. The company’s most recent flight was conducted on May 26, 2014.
MOSCOW (RSC Energia PR) — Work is performed in compliance with the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation where RSC Energia is identified as the prime contractor of space rocket complex (SRC).
The following enterprises of State Corporation ROSCOSMOS: RSC Progress, FSUE TsENKI, etc. are the work co-executors.
Flight tests of new Russian launch vehicle (LV) Soyuz-5 are planned to be conducted for 2022 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Speaking a day after SpaceX successfully re-flew a previously used Falcon 9 first stage, Russian space officials sought to reassure the public about the nation’s lagging launch rate and outlined plans to increase revenues from the International Space Station (ISS).
On Friday, Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said Russia was aiming for more than two dozen launches this year.
“We will conduct at least 30 launches from the Baikonur, Plesetsk, Vostochny and Kourou space centers this year,” Komarov said at a meeting of the Expert Council of Russia’s Military-Industrial Committee.
With one quarter of the year completed, Russia has conducted two launches.
While Russia retired its Soyuz-U rocket with one final flight on Wednesday after 44 years and 787 launches, a couple of other programs — Sea Launch and tourists trips around the moon — have resurfaced.
MOSCOW, Sept. 27, 2016 (S7 Group PR) — S7 Group today announced that it has signed an agreement with Sea Launch Group to acquire the assets of the Sea Launch complex. The contract was signed today on the sidelines of the IAC 2016, the International Astronautical Congress taking place now in Guadalajara, Mexico.
It looks as if the moribound Sea Launch company could have a new lease on life.
Majority owner Energia has scheduled a press conference with the S7 Group on Tuesday during the International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. The invitation promises a major announcement about the future of the long troubled venture.
The news that Roscosmos has found a buyer for Sea Launch has sparked more litigation over the troubled launch provider.
Boeing has filed suit to block the sale until it can collect a court judgment of $298 million from its Russian and Ukrainian partners. Boeing won a court case in September that involves payments that RSC Energia and Yuzhnoye owe from previous business dealings.
It looks as if Russia has found someone to take Sea Launch off its hands.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has found a buyer for a troubled commercial space project known as Sea Launch, the agency’s director Igor Komarov was cited by the TASS news agency as saying on Wednesday.
“I cannot tell you who the investor is, or the value of the contract, due to certain obligations. I hope that we will have something to say about it by the end of April,” Komarov said. He did, however, say that investors from the U.S., Australia, China and Europe have expressed interest in the project.
The troubled company, which uses a floating platform to launch communications satellite aboard Zenit boosters from the equator, has been on the market for several years. It is majority owned by RSC Energia.
Sea Launch’s last launch was in May 2014. The company has been troubled by launch failures and an inability to secure a significant percentage of the global launch market.
