Russia regains control of biology satellite
Russian engineers have re-established contact with its Photon-M biology spacecraft carrying fruit flies, mushrooms, and five geckos.
Tag: Russia
Russia loses contact with Photon-M
Russia has lost contact with its Photon-M biology spacecraft, launched last week with a four geckos on board.
The Russians say that the receipt of telemetry from the spacecraft shows it is successfully operating autonomously without help from the ground. And since the Russians have a great deal of experience building spacecraft that can function on their own, I have no reason to disbelieve them in this. What is not clear is whether the spacecraft can come home on its own.
The next Proton and Angara launches
The competition heats up: Russia has set September 28 as the next launch date for its troubled Proton rocket.
The most interesting detail gleaned from this article however is this:
The Proton-M carrier rocket previously launched on May 16 from Baikonur space center collided with communications satellite Express ΠΠ4R and burned up in the atmosphere above China, leaving Russia without its most powerful telecommunications satellite.
Previous reports had not been very clear about the causes of the May launch failure. All they would say is that “a failed bearing in the steering engineβs turbo pump” had caused the failure about nine minutes into the flight. This report suggests that this failure occurred after separation of the payload and that it then caused the upper stage to collide with the satellite.
Russia is also about to ship its new Angara 5 rocket to the launch site for a planned December launch. This will be the first launch of the Angara configuration that is expected to replace the Proton rocket, and is expected to place a dummy payload into geosynchronous orbit.
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Russian Soyuz launches commercial satellites for Arianespace
The competition heats up: A Soyuz rocket successfully launched four communications satellites from French Guiana yesterday.
I know that I repeatedly pound Arianespace for its high costs and lack of profits, but anyone who thinks this European company, in partnership with the Russians, is going to let its competition grab its customers easily is in for a surprise. They are going to fight back, and have the resources to do it.
The battle is on! It should be a lot of fun to watch over the next decade.
Angara launches
The competition heats up: The first test launch today of Russia’s new Angara rocket was a success, according to Russian reports.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the first stage of the rocket separated four minutes after the liftoff, while the vehicle was flying in the projected area over the southern Barents Sea and in the range of the Russian ground control network. The main engine of the second stage was shut down as planned at 16:08 Moscow Time and the stage along with a payload mockup fell in the projected area of the Kura impact range on the Kamchatka Peninsula 5,700 kilometers from the launch site, 21 minutes after liftoff.
Russia will obviously have to conduct further test launches, including the first orbital test, before it declares Angara operational. Nonetheless, this success gets them closer to replacing the Proton and Zenit rockets and allowing them to decrease their reliance on rockets, spaceports, and components under the control of independent countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
More details about the Angara rocket family can also be found here.
Russia to phase out use of Ukrainian-built Soyuz rockets
As part of a major upgrade of its Soyuz rocket family, Russia is also ending its partnership with Ukraine in building those rockets.
The older Soyuz rockets rely on a Ukrainian control system β a relic of the rocket family’s Soviet heritage that in the aftermath of Russia seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in March looks like a threat to Russia’s space program. The rockets are based on the same core design that launched Sputnik and Yury Gagarin into space at the dawn of the space age. “The Soyuz-U and Soyuz-FG control systems are analog [systems] made in Ukraine,” Alexander Kirilin, CEO of the Progress Rocket and Space Center in the Volga city of Samara told Interfax on Monday.
However, the Soyuz 2 rockets use a Russian-made digital control system. Aside from further moving Russia’s space industry away from its reliance on Ukrainian components, the digital control system allows the rockets to handle a wider variety of payloads β making the tried-and-tested Russian rocket more versatile than ever before.
It is Russia’s plan to complete the transition to the new wholly Russian Soyuz 2 rockets for ISS missions within the next three years.
Buran moved to new exhibition location
After sitting in Gorky Park since 1995, the prototype of Russia’s space shuttle, Buran, was moved this past weekend to Moscow’s official outdoor exhibition center.
Back in 2003, when I was in Moscow interviewing people for Leaving Earth, my apartment was within walking distance of Gorky Park. I went over there to take a look. You could get to within a few feet of the prototype, which was sitting with no display signs or security other than a simple fence. It looked quite dilapidated (I would post the photographs I took but this was the last time I used my film camera, and they are all slides.)
The article above has some nice details describing the history of Buran, and why it only flew once. Definitely worth reading.
Angara to fly July 9?
The first test flight of Russia’s new Angara rocket is now tentatively scheduled for July 9.
The story confirms that the problem was a faulty valve, which it appears they can replace at the spaceport, rather than return the rocket to the manufacturer. The story also had this line, which tells us that Russia is still struggling with quality control problems: “The valveβs malfunctioning was a result of sloppy assembly.”
Russia abandons Sea Launch
Running from competition: The Russian space agency Roskosmos has decided not to spend the money necessary to buy Sea Launch and make it part of its consolidated United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC).
Part of the reason the Russians are abandoning Sea Launch is that the rocket the ocean-going platform uses is the Ukrainian-built Zenit rocket, and Russia wants URSC to a wholly Russian operation. Rather than partner with Ukraine for profit, they will let the business die.
Construction of Vostochny spaceport on schedule
The competition heats up: According to Russian Deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, the new Vostochny spaceport is on schedule to begin operations in 2015.
Valve failure caused Angara scrub
The first test flight of Russia’s new Angara rocket was scrubbed because loss of pressure in the fuel system because of a valve failure.
As expected, this failure requires them to take the rocket off the launchpad to replace the valve.
Angara launch July 1 or 2?
Though Russia has not yet announced a new launch date for its new Angara rocket, the government has told pilots to avoid the launch site beginning today, suggesting the rocket will be launched either July 1 or July 2..
Scroll to the bottom of the story above to read more details.