Recently in Russia Category

Spacevidcast.com has released this video and this article about Russia's MAKS aerospace system

Reading about president Barack Obama's decision to resurrect the Orion crew exploration vehicle as an escape capsule we are told (here and then here and in plenty of other articles) that this will reduce NASA's dependence upon Russian crew transport services

This could not be more wrong. Russia has been providing all International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation flghts since STS-129, the last Shuttle flight to do that job in November last year

The ISS has six crew (yes Expedition 22 had only five crew) and for that Russia is providing four three-crew Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft a year

Orion Lite will not launch crew, it launches unmanned for an automatic rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station and then sits there, but until when?

It is not needed for an emergency return. Soyuz have been docked to the station for the emergency return role ever since station has been inhabited. So Orion Lite is not reducing Russian flights to the station and it is simply not needed for the escape role

credit: CNES / caption: one day this will not just be a CGI video screengrab

This month, the European Space Agency director general Jean Jacques Dordain told me, the launch complex gantry for the Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rockets flying from French Guiana should be finished and a maiden flight date should be announced. However Russia's deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov was not so sure when speaking to RIA Novosti this week, saying "This year, I hope, a milestone rocket...event will take place" [emphasis added]

This blogger would have asked Dordain at the CroySat-2 launch event but the director general was not available for questions, despite the success of that Kosmotras Dnepr rocket flight. Perhaps the Soyuz 2-1a flight will take place in time for the global space summit Ivanov's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called for? Rather than the usual G8 suspects of the US, European countries, Russia and Japan Medvedev also sees exploration collaboration between it and the G8 near-peers, China, India and Brazil. In this article on the Russian Federal Space Agency website Ivanov pledges increases in spending for the country's space programme. Are you listening Mr Obama? 


credit: Federal Space Agency / caption: the gantry is constructed in Russia prior to shipping

Russia Today has provided an English language version of this Russia 24 news channel interview with Energia space corporation head Vitaly Lopota about the country's new Advanced Crew Vehicle and how it could be used to go to the Moon. Energia is the Russian government's prime contractor for ACV

Interestingly the first unmanned flight of ACV was given as 2015 but the first manned flight was stated as 2018, later than previously stated and quite a gap at three years. Why not launch in 2016? Perhaps the 2015 flight will not use the Rus-M rocket that is designated as the launcher for ACV? Is Rus-M the long pole in Russia's manned spaceflight plans?

In the video Lopota says that his company will not address space tourism for many years to come because of its focus on the International Space Station. And in this text only Russia Today article it is reported that Russian Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov has explained that tourism flights are not going to happen for years to come and that the country's Angara rocket family's first launcher's first flight is suffering further delays and is now expected in 2012

This video from Russian news channel Russia 24 has CGI video of the country's proposed Advanced Crew Vehicle (ACV) that would be launched by the new Rus-M rocket. In the video ACV is launched by a rocket that looks different to previous Rus-M designs seen and the crew vehicle flies to the International Space Station and lands using its retro-rockets and landing gear, without any help from parachutes

Anatoly Perminov head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) speaks today, the 49th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, to the Russia 24 news channel. For those of you who can't speak Russian he tells tham that people could fly to Mars as early as 2020 and that Russian scientists are developing a nuclear energy source that could reduce the travel time to the Red planet by 20 times

While this report on Roscosmos' website is the first this blogger has seen that mentions an activity planned for next year on the 50th anniversary of humanity's first flight into space, thanks to Yuri Gagarin, his Vostok 1 capsule and the Soviet space programme and its leader Sergei Korolev

Never let it be said that spaceflight is not high profile in Russian society, whether it is the birthday of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, or the recent visit by the country's prime minister Vladimir Putin to Star City aka Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

And preparations continue for the new cosmodrome at Vostochny with another meeting between Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) head Anatoly Perminov and the governor of the region that hosts the spaceport

NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery delivered the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo today. Leonardo will be attached permanently to the International Space Station for Shuttle's final mission STS-133. Watch this video of the MRM 1 which is to be delivered by Shuttle in May. Its sister module MRM 2 was launched to the International Space Station by a Samara Space Center Soyuz rocket in November last year

Go here for a Russian, English language, news report on the NASA, Roscosmos crew transport deal. Thanks to the US government Russia will profit from NASA's transport needs for years to come, Shuttle extension or no Shuttle extension

Find here a video alleging to be the recent Soyuz TMA 18 docking at the International Space Station 

Is it just this blog or is there just not much going on out there at the moment? Maybe it is the Christian festival of Easter that is slowing things down with all that related time off work?

But for those of you that are looking forward to the imminent 2 April Soyuz TMA-18 launch there are pre-flight interviews with the crew at the news webpage of Russia's Federal Space Agency aka Roscosmos

Russian news website RIA Novosti is reporting that the UK and Russia could become high tech partners - is this because of the creation of the UK Space Agency? One doubts any help will be forthcoming on the scale that Russia provided China with for its manned spaceflight programme - click on the hypertext for a 38-slide presentation about the middle kingdom's ambitions, happy Easter!

Here is a 9min 41s clip from NASA administrator Charles Bolden's 23 March appearence at the House of Representatives' Committee on Appropriatons' subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on NASA. Other Youtube clips of this hearing can be found here care of someone called ISSmania6

For the 24 March NASA hearing for the space and aeronautics subcommittee of the House of Representatives' science and technology committee click here to launch the archived webcast