Tag: Russia

Soyuz capsule was drilled after it was fully assembled

1:48 pm

The investigation into the drillhole leak in the Soyuz capsule docked to ISS has revealed that it had to have been done after the capsule was fully assembled.

“During the analysis of those images, traces of drilling were found on the anti-meteorite shield,” the source said, adding that “the top of the drill came through the pressure hull and hit the non-gastight outer shell.”

According to another industry source, the non-gastight anti-meteorite protection is installed right before the spacecraft is taken to the final assembly workshop. “When Soyuz MS-09 has just arrived to the final assembly workshop, it was photographed in details. No hole and no signs of drilling… were found. The spacecraft was drilled later, when it was fully assembled,” the source said. He added that the anti-meteorite shield was also photographed before being installed, and no traces on it were found as well.

The source suggested that the spacecraft could be damaged either during the very last stage of works or during its 90-day stay in the checkout stand, adding that it was highly unlikely that the damage occurred during the transportation to the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan or at the launch facility.

This narrowing of the time frame for the drilling will increase the chances that the Russians will be able to identify who did.

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NASA & Roscosmos heads to meet

11:02 pm

After their teleconference to discuss the status of Russia’s investigation into the airleak on ISS, the heads of NASA and Roscosmos agreed to their first face-to-face meeting on October 10 at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Part of the reason for the teleconference and this announcement to try to stem the wild rumors about the leak, including the accusation that it was done by an American astronaut.

I also expect them to discuss how they can jointly lobby the American Congress to fund the Gateway boondoggle, formerly (F)LOP-G.

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Faulty concrete at Vostochny launchpad caused by contractor

8:30 am

The faulty and spongy concrete that the Russians have discovered at the Vostochny Soyuz launchpad was caused when the contractor hurried the job as well as improperly laid the concrete.

“It was a mistake by the contractor Spetsstroi. The process of concrete laying was violated due to rush work,” the source said. “Spetsstroi laid the concrete in winter time in utterly unsuitable conditions and used drying fans.” The source said the cavities in concrete were identified more than a year and “continued to be eliminated by the public corporation itself until the contract with Adonis was concluded.

Part of the blame here falls not to the contractor but to Putin. He demanded that Roscosmos complete a launch at Vostochny in 2016, and to do so all the contractors at Vostochny had to scramble to get the job done. Apparently, this particular contractor was forced to cut corners improperly.

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More aerospace problems in Russia

9:31 am

Two stories out of Russia today suggest that the serious quality control problems plaguing its aerospace industry have not been brought under control.

According to the second article the launch delay is because a Russian satellite manufacturer is behind schedule and might not deliver needed parts for the satellite’s assembly in time. I suspect the delay might also be related to the first article, as this satellite will launch on the brand new launchpad where they have discovered the cavities below ground.

That these cavities were not pinpointed during construction is very troublesome. One of the reasons SpaceX’s Boca Chica launchsite in Texas is taking as long as it is getting built is that the company had to make sure the soft beach property was structurally sound for rocket launches. That the Russians missed this speaks poorly again of their quality control.

Delays are common in the rocket industry, but in the context of Russia’s other space-related problems, the delay suggests a wider problem.

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Russia begins construction of Angara launchpad at Vostochny

9:52 am

Russia has begun the construction of the first Angara launchpad at their new Vostochny spaceport.

According to earlier reports, the Angara launch pad is to be completed by December 31, 2022. Construction costs are estimated at nearly 39 billion rubles ($565 million).

Somehow it seems to me that this construction is too expensive and is taking too long. A launchpad is essentially a specialized building on the surface. I don’t see why it should be so difficult or expensive to do.

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“Unsteady hand” drilled hole in Soyuz

9:34 am

According to reports in Russia today, Roscosmos head Dmitri Rogozin suggested earlier this week that an “unsteady hand” had made several attempts to drill a hole in the Soyuz capsule.

“There is another version that we are not ruling out; that this was done deliberately in space,” Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Rogozin saying.

He indicated there were “several attempts to use a drill” by an “unsteady hand,” scraping the metal areas surrounding the hole, according to RIA Novosti. “We can cut short the idea that this was a technological mistake made by some specialist or other,” he added.

The vision that immediately came to my mind was that of a drunk technician, unhappy about pay, bad living conditions, and corruption, stumbling into the capsule, drilling the hole. Later, after he sobered up he realized the disaster he had created for himself and tried to fix it secretly.

Then again, it is dangerous to take seriously anything Dmitri Rogozin says. He could be trying to spin the situation to his advantage.

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Roscosmos re-inspecting all Progress/Soyuz capsules

9:48 am

The Russians are going to give all Progress and Soyuz capsules being prepared for launch a new inspection following the discovery that the airleak on the Soyuz docked with ISS had been caused by a technician on the ground prior to launch and covered up.

The consequences to Russia’s space industry because of this incident are going to be difficult to measure. It surely signals that they have still not got a handle on their quality control problems. In fact, it provides further proof that the technical work coming out of Russia is shoddy, sloppy, and filled with many forms of corruption, all circumstances that should give pause to anyone thinking of flying a product or themselves on a Russian-made product.

Worse, the centralized government-run space industry created by Putin is exactly the wrong thing for fixing these problems. Russia does not have a competitive and free aerospace industry. Everything is run by the government and based on the ability to wield political power rather the ability to demonstrate skill and quality in how you do your job.

With only five launches expected in 2019, Russia’s space program is sinking to the level of a third world country. This airleak disaster will only help it sink further.

One last note: I predicted this kind of disaster back in 2013, when the consolidation of Russia’s aerospace industry was announced by the Putin government. My prediction was not very difficult, nor especially brilliant, since disasters like this always occur from government-run top-down socialist/communist systems. One only has to be patient. It is only a matter of time before the system fails, and fails badly.

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ISS airleak an accidental drill hole on ground

5:21 pm

The airleak last week on ISS in the orbital module of a Soyuz capsule was not caused by a micrometeorite but by an accidental drill hole made by a technician on the ground who then, rather than reporting it, sealed it and covered it up..

“The hole was made on the ground. The person responsible for the act of negligence has been identified,” the source told the news agency.

Another source said a worker apparently accidentally drilled the hole, but instead of reporting it, simply sealed it. The sealant held for at least the two months the Soyuz spacecraft spent in orbit, before finally drying up and being pushed out of the hole by air pressure.

According to a Moskovsky Komsomolets report, the hole was located near the toilet and covered by decorative fabric. The Russian crew members used an epoxy-based sealant with metallic additives to plug both the hole and a fracture in the outer hull of the Soyuz located behind it, the newspaper said.

Well, if anything is going to put an end to the resistance to using privately built American manned capsule, this should do it. This is also going to do a great deal of harm to the Russian desire to sell tourist seats on their Soyuz.

Posted from Heber, Arizona.

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Russian official predicts only 10 launches for 2019-2020

9:24 am

How the mighty have fallen: A Russian official yesterday predicted that they will only do a total of 10 launches for the two year period from 2019 to 2020.

“Five launches are envisaged for 2019. Five launches of manned and resupply ships, and also of a nodal module are planned for 2020,” the vice-premier said at a meeting held at the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation on the problems of piloted cosmonautics in the process of fulfilling long-term space exploration programs. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words reveal a second tidbit, namely that they apparently will not be launching the Nauka module to ISS in 2019, as previously announced.

In a related story, a Russian space official also confirmed that they will definitely cease flying American astronauts on Soyuz in April 2019, as per the NASA-Russian contract.

The second story does not mention the Soyuz flight seats that Boeing owns, obtained as part of the settlement of the Sea Launch partnership. I wonder about their status. Are the Russians going to block them? I also suspect that this second story might be a negotiating effort by the Russian government to press NASA into buying more flights, something NASA has so far not done.

Either way, the first story essentially places Russian in the bottom echelon of space-launch nations, ranking comparable to what India and Japan have been doing in recent years. Both these countries however expect to up their numbers, which makes Russia’s space future look even more dismal.

For the entire history of space, beginning with Sputnik, the Soviet Union/Russia had consistently dominated the world in annual launches. For them to have fallen so far tells us much about the failed socialist and centralized policies of the Putin government. They do not work. They never work. In fact, they cannot work.

Will someone please tell this fact to both the American Democratic Party, and the many people who continue to vote for its new socialist agenda?

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Vostochny manager accused of overbuying cables

9:45 am

Russian investigators have now clarified the charges against one of the Vostochny managers, accusing him of overbuying unnecessary cables, manufactured by a company his family owns, so that they could pocket an extra $1.5 million in cash.

According to the investigators, Volkodav – by abusing his power as a head of General Military Works Department №6 – overbought cables that were unnecessary in the further construction of the spaceport at Vostochny Cosmodrome. The cables were bought in a Tsvetlit company (owned by his relatives) for the purposes of its enrichment. In fact, the bought-in goods were never used and are not an object of the contract signed by the General Military Works Department and the company. The former head’s actions caused losses to the tune of 104 million rubles ($1.5 million).

Volkodav’s lawyers have also noted that the actual amount involved is really about half a million dollars, as the contractor has paid back about a million.

While this might be a lot of money in Russia, the amounts and activities correspond roughly to the typical corruption that exists throughout the Putin government. I suspect that they are prosecuting this guy not to clean up corruption but to use him as a scapegoat for the overall problems the government has had building the Vostochny spaceport, including gigantic cost overruns, worker strikers, and endless schedule delays.

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Ukraine test flies winged cruise missile

9:53 am

Ukraine announced today that it has successfully test flown Neptun, a new cruise missile with wings.

[Neptun] is a subsonic weapon developed to hit maritime targets, but can also be deployed against land targets, said Ukrainian defense expert Serhiy Sguretz. “The trajectory is standard for a cruise missile, the cruising flight altitude is 10 to 30 meters (33 to 100 feet), and in the final approach phase, it descends to four to five meters. The missile is equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead. Guidance system details have not been published, but it is capable of hitting different targets, including enemy radar stations. When attacking maritime targets, Neptun has a range of approximately 280 km, increasing to 300 km when launched against land targets. “With a little help, it could fly up to Moscow,” added Sguretz.

The cruise missile is scheduled to be built in three different versions—sea-launched, land-launched, and air-launched—targeting sea and land objects. A picture published by the RNBO shows that the Neptun’s mobile transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) has some similarity to that of the S-300 Soviet/Russian air defense system.

Neptun could be integrated onto not only the Ukrainian air force’s Soviet/Russian aircraft but on some NATO aircraft.

Obviously, this is designed to give Russia pause about any further aggression against the Ukraine.

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Russian medics have approved UAE’s astronaut candidates

9:19 am

The new colonial movement: Russian medics have now narrowed the candidates for the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first spaceflight.

Nine candidates were sent to Russia for testing. The article does not say how many candidates were given medical clearance. Further training in September will narrow the choices further, followed by a final decision by the UAE naming the one person who will fly to ISS.

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Roscosmos in the news!

9:48 am

Three news stories from Russia, two from today and one from last week, provide us a flavor of the kind of space stories that come out of Russia almost daily, either making big promises of future great achievements, or making blustery excuses for the failure of those big promises to come true.

In the first the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, rationalizes the failure of Russia to compete successfully with SpaceX.
» Read more

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Russian astronauts complete 8 hour spacewalk

8:36 am

Link here. Besides doing some basic maintenance work as well as literally tossing four cubesats into independent orbit, the most intriguing work was the installation of a German/Russian antenna designed to track animals.

Icarus is a collaborative environmental experiment between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Roscosmos to study the migratory patterns of small animals on Earth. It consists of an antenna and GPS hardware to track the movements of animals that have been tagged with small GPS receivers.

The experiment may provide data about how animals move from one location to another, how animal population density shifts over time, and how diseases spread.

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Russian lawmaker threatens to block sale of Russian rocket engines to ULA

8:52 am

In response to new U.S. sanctions, a Russian lawmaker has now threatened to block the sale of the Russian RD-180 rocket engine that ULA uses in its Atlas 5 rocket.

Russian lawmaker Sergei Ryabukhin, who heads the budget committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, responded to the new sanctions by vowing: “The United States needs to finally understand that it’s useless to fight with Russia, including with the help of sanctions.”

According to the Russian news agency RIA, Ryabukhin found a place to hit Washington where it’s soft: the rocket engine. Losing access to the RD-180 would make American access to space—something Donald Trump desires enough to create a separate military service branch devoted to it—much more complicated. The engine helps get everything from satellites to astronauts into orbit.

More details here.

If Russia does this they will be shooting themselves in the foot. ULA is their only customer for the RD-180 engine. Without those sales, they would cut themselves off from one of the few remaining international space contracts they still have, further bankrupting their dying space industry. Furthermore, the U.S. has many other options even if the Atlas 5 can no longer fly. ULA might suffer until it can get a replacement engine, but in the meantime the Falcon Heavy is now available to replace it, at less cost.

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Russian scientist accused of treason fed data to NATO

9:09 am

According to his lawyer the Roscosmos scientists who was arrested two weeks ago has been accused of providing classified data to one of NATO’s member states.

The lawyer did not reveal the specific nation involved. Other reports have suggested the leaked material involved Russia’s hypersonic engine research.

I still can’t help wondering what prompted the arrest, and if it is linked somehow with leaks coming out of the FBI and the Department of Justice in connection with Robert Mueller’s never-ending Russian collusion investigation.

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Russian company that builds Proton rocket faces bankruptcy and reorganization

9:25 am

The Russian company that builds Russia’s Proton rocket now faces bankruptcy and reorganization.

By the middle of 2018, due to the dramatically slowed down rate of Proton launches, its manufacturers fell deeper into the red and needed federal funding to stay afloat. According to the official numbers, GKNPTs Khrunichev lost 23 billion rubles in 2017 and asked for a 30-billion infusion of cash from the government.

At the end of June, the Head of Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin acknowledged an ongoing effort to fix the financial situation at Khrunichev and announced plans to accelerate the switch of the Russian launch operations from the Proton to the Angara family. Ironically, Roskosmos exacerbated the company’s debt with its penalties for missed production deadlines, even though Russian payloads slated to ride those delayed rockets were themselves years behind schedule and GKNPTs Khrunichev had no room to store large rocket components.

In an effort to raise capital, Khrunichev planned to sell a big part of its campus, located in the hyper-valuable real estate area of Moscow, to private developers. In the process, the company would also dramatically reduce its production capacity and cut its personnel in the Russian capital, shifting key manufacturing operations to Omsk, in Western Siberia. In another cost-saving measure, around 200 people were reported to be marked for layoffs at Proton’s launch facilities in Baikonur beginning in the fall of 2018.

The Russian government, rather than allow for competition, is working to prop the company up. So, rather than having new companies appear with new and better ideas, Russia will be saddled with an old company not good at innovating.

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Treason investigation opened against Roscosmos research unit

10:12 am

The Russian government has arrested at least one person and opened a treason investigation against a specific Roscosmos research unit that has been focused on hypersonic technology.

Member of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission Yevgeny Yenikeyev earlier told TASS that a Moscow court had authorized the arrest of TsNIImash’s 74-year-old staffer Viktor Kudryavtsev accused of high treason. He didn’t specify, however, which court had sanctioned the staffer’s arrest. Ustimenko confirmed to TASS that the scientist had been taken into custody but offered no details. TsNIImash declined to comment on the information on the arrest.

The Russian business daily Kommersant earlier reported that an investigative team from the Federal Security Service (FSB) had searched the officers of TsNIImash staffers, as well as the office of Director of the Roscosmos Research and Analytical Center Dmitry Paison. According to the paper, investigative measures were being carried out as part of criminal proceedings instituted on charges of high treason under Russia’s Criminal Code, and about 10 employees working in the space industry were under investigation for collaborating with Western intelligence services.

The FSB determined that Western intelligence agencies had found out about the results of the Russian space industry’s ‘top secret’ work on hypersonic technologies, the paper reported.

I cannot help wondering if the numerous leaks by anti-Trump ideologues in the FBI, the Department of Justice, and Congress, all related to their futile effort to pin Russian collusion charges against Trump, have ended up exposing these internal sources of information in Russia.

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