The Russians revealed today that the reason they are delaying Friday’s manned Soyuz mission is because they detected a short circuit in the Soyuz capsule during a test.
One more detail that needs mention: This will only be the second manned flight of this version of the Soyuz capsule, officially dubbed Soyuz-MS.
The Russian government, faced with low oil prices, a weak ruble, and a big budget, has been depleting its cash reserves and could run out of money within a year.
The government’s reserve fund is designed to cover shortfalls in the national budget at times of low oil and gas revenues.
Russia’s 2016 budget is based on the assumption the country would be able to sell its oil for $50 per barrel. But the average oil price in the first eight months of the year was less than $43 per barrel. Oil now makes up just 37% of all government revenues, compared to roughly 50% just two years ago.
When their reserve funds run out, they will then dip into another fund reserved for pensions and investment projects. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Kind of like the approach the big Democratically controlled U.S. cities like New York have used to continue to spend money they didn’t have.
It is interesting to compare Russia and China these days, especially considering the state of both of their space programs. Despite the fact that many say that China’s success is hollow, they have still been able to fund and build what is now a very vibrant and new manned and planetary space effort. Russia however cannot build anything new, and is now faced with reducing its ISS crew complement because it can’t afford to launch the supplies required for three people.
It will be very interesting to watch this story in Russia unfold.
For unexplained “technical reasons” Russia has postponed the manned launch of three astronauts to ISS on Friday, September 23.
“Roscosmos decided to postpone launch of the spacecraft Soyuz MS-02, scheduled for September 23, 2016, due to technical reasons after control testing at the Baikonur space center [in Kazakhstan],” the statement said.
Russia today made it official: Beginning in the spring of 2017 their crews to ISS will be reduced from 3 to 2, and will remain reduced until they launch their next ISS module.
“In case the endorsed schedule is observed and the MLM gets into operation in December 2017, the curtailment will affect only one Russian crew,” the source said. “Otherwise the practice of curtailment will continue until the commissioning of the module.”
The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos has to downsize the ISS mission crew as the number of Progress cargo ships launched to the ISS annually will be reduced to three from four at present in the wake of NASA’s refusal to continue using the Progresses and to change over to new U.S. cargo carriers instead, the source said, adding that three Progresses a year is not enough to support three cosmonauts working at the ISS permanently.
The finances will get even more squeezed when the U.S. no longer needs them to launch its astronauts.
The competition heats up: In a shift in policy Russia today announced that rather than abandon their Proton rocket and replace it with Angara, they plan to expand the Proton rocket family by introducing two new smaller versions.
Because these new versions are merely revisions, they hope to have them available by 2019 at the earliest.
The competition heats up? The Russian government is considering building another new rocket that would be based more on Proton than Angara and could function eventually as the foundation for a heavy-lift rocket.
At the heart of the new design was the idea to enlarge the diameter of the Zenit rocket from 3.8 to 4.1 meters, so it could match the “caliber” of the Proton rocket. As a result, the Proton’s production machinery could be re-used with relatively few upgrades to manufacture the new-generation launcher, after its predecessor’s planned retirement in mid-2020s. Unlike Proton, all stages on Sunkar would burn non-toxic kerosene and liquid oxygen, as it had long been insisted upon by the Kazakh government. The Sunkar could utilize the existing launch and processing infrastructure for the Zenit rocket in Baikonur, which could be funded by Kazakhstan.
…Ironically, the proposal to develop yet another type of space launcher essentially reverses the previous strategy at GKNPTs Khrunichev of relying on a modular architecture of the Angara family to cover the entire spectrum of space payloads. However, unlike Angara’s standard booster, URM-1, the first stage of the Sunkar rocket will be large enough to serve as a building block for a future super-heavy rocket, reaching payloads of at least 80 tons, so it could serve as the main vehicle for the deep-space exploration program. Therefore, the Sunkar proposal can be considered as the first step in building a more powerful family of space rockets in Russia.
Run as a single government entity, it appears to me that the Russian aerospace industry is struggling with its decision-making process. Without some internal profit-oriented competition, they have no method for focusing their efforts on any design. Rather than have multiple independent companies competing for profit with their own individual designs, Roscosmos’s management can only make its decisions after much office politics, the logic of which often has nothing to do with the best or most efficient concept. Their one saving grace is that, rather than competing with themselves to thus encourage fast and efficient development, they will be competing with other countries — especially the American private sector — and that will eventually give them the impetus to build something.
Three ISS astronauts safely returned to Earth early Wednesday, landing as planned in their Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan.
The American, Jeff Williams, now holds the American record for the most accumulated time in space, though overall he ranks 14th behind thirteen Russians.
The head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, revealed today that there will be significant additional cuts to the country’s space program in the coming months.
These cuts come on top of the almost one-third cuts imposed from the time the budget for the ten-year plan was first proposed in 2015 and its adoption early this year.
The competition heats up: Russian engineers have completed their preliminary design for a proposed Progress replacement, first revealed August 22.
The main rationale for the development of the new cargo ship was the urgent need to reduce the number of cargo launches to the ISS from four to three annually, while still supporting three crew members on the Russian segment of the station.
The preliminary design for the new cargo ship was originally to be completed in December 2016, but the work was apparently sped up to be completed in August of the same year. Still, even if the go ahead for the full-scale development of the project was given immediately, the new cargo ship was not expected to fly before 2020. In the meantime, the Russian crew onboard the ISS could be reduced from three to two people beginning in March 2017 onward, with the exception of a time period in 2018, when Russian cosmonauts would have to conduct spacewalks to outfit the newly arrived MLM module.
The new design, radically different from Russia’s present Soyuz and Progress capsules, would be able to place 8.2 tons in orbit, one ton more than Progress. That the Russians accelerated the design process suggests to me that they are putting a high priority on this project, and that they will build it.
Because of budget constraints Russia has been forced to delay by at least a year the construction of the launchpad facilities at Vostochny for their new Angara family of rockets.
Angara’s first test flights from Vostochny will now not happen before 2021. It seems to me that by the time they get this rocket off the ground it will already be obsolete.
What, me worry? Russian hackers attempted and were partly successful in June in accessing the election databases of Arizona and Illinois.
Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state. The bureau described the threat as “credible” and significant, “an eight on a scale of one to 10,” Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R), said Monday. As a result, Reagan shut down the state’s voter registration system for nearly a week.
It turned out that the hackers had not compromised the state system or even any county system. They had, however, stolen the username and password of a single election official in Gila County.
The article describes in detail the overall bad situation, including a number of additional attacks as well as the poor security surrounding the online voting option that more than 30 states use.
As usual, we are being told not to worry by the responsible government officials:
Tom Hicks, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, an agency set up by Congress after the 2000 Florida recount to maintain election integrity, said he is confident that states have sufficient safeguards in place to ward off attempts to manipulate data. For example, if a voter’s name were deleted and did not show up on the precinct list, the individual could still cast a provisional ballot, Hicks said. Once the voter’s status was confirmed, the ballot would be counted. Hicks also said the actual systems used to cast votes “are not hooked up to the Internet” and so “there’s not going to be any manipulation of data.” However, more than 30 states have some provisions for online voting, primarily for voters living overseas or serving in the military.
Hicks has made me feel so much better!
Government vaporware: In an effort to save money Russian engineers have designed a new cargo spacecraft to replace the Progress freighter.
Faced with latest economic problems, and the need to reduce the number of Progress cargo launches, Russia’s space agency Roskosmos made plans to cut the permanent crew of ISS cosmonauts from three to two people. However the full international crew on the ISS is supposed to include six people with half of it reserved for Russia.
To resolve this supply problem, Roskosmos ordered RKK Energia, its key contractor responsible for human spaceflight, to prepare a preliminary design of a bigger cargo ship by the end of this month. Engineers quickly put together this proposal that would combine off-the-shelf hardware with new technology. … The most important new feature of the proposed cargo ship will be the six-tank cluster to carry more than 1.8 tons of propellant to the station. It will simultaneously serve as a tanker for the space station while also feeding the ship’s own propulsion system. As a result, the new design provides significant mass savings in comparison to the current Progress ships, which need two separate sets of tanks for refueling and maneuvering.
The main engine for the new cargo ship will be borrowed from an existing satellite. Meanwhile, 28 small thrusters for orbit correction and maneuvering will be copied practically unchanged from the Progress.
They hope to fly this new freighter by 2020. I’m willing to bet anyone that this won’t happen.
