Getting to ISS faster: a Progress freighter, launched today, is testing a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
Success: The Russians today successfully redocked their unmanned Progress freighter to ISS, using a new docking system.
July 28 has now been set for the next docking attempt by a Progress freighter to ISS to test Russia’s new docking system.
A test redocking of a new automatic docking system on a Russian Progress freighter was aborted last night when the system did not work as planned.
They will probably try again on the weekend, after a Japanese cargo craft is berthed with the station.
The competition heats up: Russia has announced it has begun construction on a manned lunar lander, set for its first unmanned test flight in 2015.
There have been many such announcements from Russia over the past decade with few ever coming true, since such announcements are generally nothing more than a public relations lobbying effort to get funding.
The most intriguing part of this article however was this quote:
Last week, head of the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Corp. Victor Khartov said Russia must “return to the Moon in 2015 in a Soviet style, to prove everyone and ourselves that we remember all the Soviet Union could do” at the Farnborough air show in Britain.
I would interpret this statement as a desire for Russia to compete more aggressively with the U.S. and others, as they did back in the days of the Soviet Union. It was also in that time period that the Lavochkin center was in its heyday, with lots of money and research work.
Russia is considering shortening the time it takes for its Progress and Soyuz capsules to reach ISS after launch, from 50 hours to 6.
The long travel time was designed to save fuel at launch — thus increasing payload — by allowing orbital mechanics to bring the capsule and station together. I wonder then why the Russians are considering this change. Have the figured out a way to save the fuel in other ways?
Three astronauts successfully lifted off on a Soyuz rocket earlier today, headed to ISS.
The Russian company building that country’s Glonass GPS system is under investigation by the police for the embezzlement of more than a half billion rubles.
For a second year in a row the U.S. has negotiated a deal with a Russian company to provide icebreaker service to Antarctica during the winter.
The company had played hardball in negotiations, so I expect the National Science Foundation is paying a lot more this year than last for the service.
It appears that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are considering hiring the Russia aerospace company Energia to build components for the CST-100 and Orion manned capsules.
What is going on here is that both Boeing and Lockheed Martin are looking for a subcontractor who can build these components for less money. Since labor costs in Russia are much lower than the U.S., both companies are considering Energia for this work.
This quote, however, encapsulates the cultural war that still goes on sometimes between Russia and the U.S.:
“[Russian] achievements in docking sites and [thermal protection equipment] production are quite competitive, but I am not sure that the Americans will accept our offer because they not only have the task of building a spaceship but also of gaining competence in this matter,” Dmitry Payson, director of the space and telecommunication technology department in Russia’s Skolkovo hi-tech hub, told Izvestia.
In interviewing many Russian and American space engineers over the years I have found an amazing amount of contempt from each for the work of the other, often without justification. Just as the Russians above seem to falsely think that Boeing and Lockheed Martin know nothing about docking equipment or thermal protection, American engineers repeatedly have expressed to me unjustified disdain for the space station technology developed by the Russians for Mir. The result: both countries often don’t take advantage of the other’s skills.
The competition heats up: Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister said today that his country needs to expand its commercial space services and grab market share from the United States and Europe.
I wonder if these comments stem from a realization that — because Russia’s Proton rocket, its main commercial space product, is twice as expensive as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 — Russia faces a significant loss of business if it does not adapt.
