Space shuttles are again in demand
Russia's lunar and martian programs need super-heavy delivery vehicles.
Nowadays, penetration into deep space, declared in the Russian and American promising space programs, however, as well as activity in near-Earth space, is inextricably linked with the creation of reliable, cost-effective, multi-functional transport systems. Moreover, they should be suitable for solving a very wide range of civil and military tasks. Apparently, Russia should pay attention to the creation of reusable space heavy transport.
Today, Russian cosmic thought has finally shifted to long-distance expeditions. This is a phased exploration of the moon - a program to which 40 has not returned for years. In the long term - manned flights to Mars. In this case, we will not discuss the aforementioned programs, but we note that we cannot do without heavy launch vehicles that can bring hundreds of tons of payload into low orbit.
"Angara" and "Yenisei"
There is no military aspect anywhere. The basic element of the American space defense system, which has already become practically a reality, will be the transport system capable of delivering numerous combat platforms and observation and control satellites to Earth’s orbit. It must also ensure the prevention and repair of these devices directly in space.
In general, a system of colossal energy possibilities has been designed. After all, only one combat platform with a hydrogen fluoride laser with an 60 megawatt power has an estimated mass of 800 tons. But efficiency weapons directional energy can only be high if many such platforms are deployed in orbit. It is clear that the total cargo turnover of the next series of “star wars” will amount to tens of thousands of tons, which must be systematically delivered to near-Earth space. But that's not all.
Today, space reconnaissance plays a key role in the use of precision weapons on Earth. This forces both the United States and Russia to constantly increase and improve their orbital groups. Moreover, high-tech spacecraft at the same time requires to provide for their orbital repair.
But back to the lunar topic. At the end of January, when plans for a comprehensive study of the Moon began to sound at full volume, with the prospect of deploying a habitable base there, Vitaly Lopota, head of the leading domestic space corporation Energia, spoke about the possibility of flying to the Moon in terms of launch vehicles.
Sending expeditions to the Moon is impossible without creating super-heavy launch vehicles with a payload of 74 – 140 tons, while the most powerful Russian Proton rocket is launching 23 into orbit. “To fly to the Moon and return, you need a two-launch launch - two 75 tons of missiles, a single-launch flight to the Moon and back without a landing is 130 – 140 tons. If we take the 75-ton rocket as the base, then the practical mission to the moon with a landing is an eight-launch scheme. If the rocket is carrying less than 75 tons, as suggested - 25 – 30 tons, then mastering even the Moon turns into an absurdity, ”said Lopota, speaking at the Royal Readings at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
Denis Lyskov, State Secretary, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, spoke about the need to have a heavy carrier in mid-May. He said that at present, Roskosmos together with the Russian Academy of Sciences is preparing a space exploration program, which will become an integral part of the next Federal space program of Russia for the 2016 – 2025 years. “In order to really talk about the flight to the moon, we will need a carrier of extra-heavy class with a carrying capacity of about 80 tons. Now this project is at the stage of development, in the near future we will prepare the necessary documents for submitting them to the government, ”Lyskov stressed.
At present, the largest Russian rocket in service is the Proton, with a payload mass of 23 tons when it is placed in a low orbit and 3,7 tons into a geostationary one. Russia is currently developing the Angara family of missiles from 1,5 to 35 tons. Unfortunately, the creation of this technology has turned into a real long-term construction and the first launch has been postponed for many years, including due to disagreements with Kazakhstan. Now it is expected that the Angara will fly at the beginning of summer from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in a light layout. According to the head of Roskosmos, there are plans to create a heavy version of the "Angara", capable of outputting a payload of 25 tonnes into low orbit.
But such indicators, as we see, are far from sufficient for the implementation of the program of interplanetary flights and the study of deep space. At the royal readings, the head of Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, said that the government was preparing a proposal to develop a super-heavy rocket capable of outputting loads of more than 160 tons to low orbit. “This is a real challenge. In terms of higher numbers, "- said Ostapenko.
It is difficult to say how soon these plans will be translated into reality. Nevertheless, domestic rocket production has a certain groundwork for the creation of heavy space transport. At the end of 80-x, it was possible to create a heavy energy carrier rocket “Energia”, capable of outputting payloads of up to 120 tons in low orbit. If we are not talking about the full reanimation of this program, then there are definitely draft designs of a heavy carrier based on Energia.
On the new rocket, you can use the main part of the "Energy" - successfully operating the LRE RD-0120. Actually, the project of a heavy rocket using these engines exists in the Khrunichev Space Center, which is the head organization for the production of our only heavy carrier, Proton.
This is a transport system "Yenisei-5", the development of which began in 2008 year. It is assumed that the rocket 75 meters in length will be equipped with a first stage with three oxygen-hydrogen LPD RD-0120, the production of which the Voronezh chemical automation bureau launched in 1976 year. According to experts of the Khrunichev Center, it will not be difficult to restore this program, and in the future it is possible to use these engines several times.
However, besides the obvious advantages of the “Yenisei” there is one significant, frankly speaking, today an unavoidable drawback - dimensions. The fact is that according to the plans, the main load of future launches will fall on the Vostochny spaceport being built in the Far East. In any case, heavy and super-heavy promising carriers are supposed to be sent into space from there.
The diameter of the first stage of the Yenisei-5 rocket is equal to the 4,1 meter and does not allow its transportation by rail, at least without a significant bulk and very expensive modernization of the road infrastructure. Because of the problems with transportation at the time had to impose restrictions on the diameter of the main stages of the rocket "Rus-M", which remained on the drawing boards.
In addition to the Khrunichev Space Center, Energia rocket and space corporation (RSC) was engaged in the development of a heavy carrier. In 2007, there they proposed a design for a carrier that uses part of the layout of the Energy rocket. Only the payload in the new rocket was located in the upper part, and not in the side container, like its predecessor.
Benefit and expediency
Americans, of course, we are not a decree, but their heavy transport, the development of which has already entered the final straight, implies partial reuse. Already this summer, SpaceX, a private company, is planning to launch the first heavy-duty launch vehicle, the Falcon Heavy, which will be the largest rocket launched since 1973 of the year. That is, since the time of the American lunar program with the launches of the giant Saturn-5 carrier, created by the father of American launch vehicles Werner von Braun. But if that rocket was intended solely for the delivery of expeditions to the moon and was disposable, then the new one can already be used for Martian expeditions. In addition, it is planned to return to the ground marching steps like the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket (R - Reusable, reused).
Space shuttles are again in demand
The first stage of this rocket is equipped with landing racks used for rocket stabilization and soft landing. After separation, the first stage performs braking by briefly turning on three of the nine engines to ensure entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere at an acceptable speed. Already near the surface, the central engine is turned on, and the stage is ready to carry out a soft landing.
The payload that the Falcon Heavy rocket can lift is 52 616 kilograms, which is about two times more than other heavy rockets - the American Delta IV Heavy, the European Ariane and the Chinese Long March.
Reusability, of course, is beneficial under the condition of high-frequency space work. Studies have shown that the use of disposable complexes is more profitable than a reusable transport system in programs with a rate of no more than five starts per year, provided that the alienation of land under the falling fields of separating parts will be temporary, rather than permanent, with the possibility of evacuating the population, livestock and equipment from hazardous areas .
This reservation is connected with the fact that the cost of land alienation was never taken into account in the calculations, because until recently, losses with rejection or even with temporary evacuation were never compensated and remain difficult to be considered. And they constitute a significant part of the cost of operating rocket systems. With a program scale of more than 75 starts over 15 years, reusable systems have the advantage, and the economic effect of their use increases with increasing numbers.
In addition, the transition from disposable means of removing heavy payloads to reusable leads to a significant reduction in the production of machinery. Thus, when two alternative systems are used in one space program, the required number of blocks is reduced four to five times, the central block cases in 50, and liquid engines for the second stage nine times. Thus, the savings due to the reduction in production when using a reusable booster is approximately equal to the cost of its creation.
Back in the Soviet Union, calculations were made of the costs of after-flight maintenance and repair work on reusable systems. The available factual data obtained by the developers as a result of ground-based bench and flight tests, as well as the operation of the glider of the Buran orbital ship with heat-shielding coating, long-range aircraft were used aviation, reusable liquid engines of the type RD-170 and RD-0120. According to the research results, the costs of maintenance and post-flight repairs account for less than 30 percent of the costs of manufacturing new missile units.
Strangely enough, the idea of reusability was manifested as far back as the 20-s in the German Treaty of Versailles pinned down, which united the European technical community covered by rocket fever. In the Third Reich in 1932 – 1942, a rocket bomber design was successfully developed under the leadership of Eigen Zenger. It was supposed to create an aircraft that, using a rail launch carriage, would accelerate to high speed, then turn on its own rocket engine, rise beyond the atmosphere, from where it made ricochet flights in dense layers of the atmosphere and reach a long range. The device was supposed to start from Western Europe and land on the territory of Japan, it was intended to bomb the US territory. Recent reports on this project were interrupted in 1944.
In the US 50-s, he served as the impetus for the development of the project of a space plane, which preceded the rogoplane "Dayna-Sor". In the Soviet Union, proposals for the development of such systems were considered by Yakovlev, Mikoyan and Myasishchev in 1947, but were not developed due to a number of difficulties associated with technical implementation.
With the rapid development of rocket technology at the end of 40-x - the beginning of 50-s, the need to complete work on a manned rocket-glider bomber was no longer necessary. The rocket industry formed the direction of ballistic-type cruise missiles, which, based on the general concept of their application, found their place in the general defense system of the USSR.
But in the United States, research on the rocket glider was supported by the military. At that time, it was believed that ordinary planes or projectiles with air-jet engines are the best means of delivering charges to the territory of the enemy. Projects were born under the Navajo planning missile program. Bell Aircraft continued to research the spacecraft in order to use it not as a bomber, but as a reconnaissance vehicle. In 1960, a contract was signed with Boeing for the development of the Daina-SOR suborbital reconnaissance rocket plane, which was supposed to be launched by the Titan-3 rocket.
However, the USSR returned to the idea of space planes at the beginning of the 60-ies and deployed work in the Mikoyan Design Bureau at once on two projects of suborbital vehicles. In the first, the projectile was envisaged, in the second, the Soyuz rocket with an orbital plane. The two-stage aerospace system was called the “Spiral” or the “50 / 50” project.
The orbital rocket-launched ship launched from the back of a powerful carrier Tu-95K at high altitude. The Spiral rocket launcher on liquid-propellant rocket engines reached a near-earth orbit, carried out planned work there and returned to Earth, planning in the atmosphere. The functions of this compact flying spacecraft-airplane were much wider than just work in orbit. The full-scale model of the rocket glider made several flights in the atmosphere.
The Soviet project involved the creation of a vehicle weighing more than 10 tons with folding wing consoles. The experimental version of the device in the 1965 year was ready for the first flight as a subsonic analogue. To solve the problems of thermal effects on the structure in flight and the controllability of the device at subsonic and supersonic speeds, flying models were built, which were called “Bor”. Their tests were performed in 1969 – 1973. In-depth study of the results has led to the need to create two models: Bor-4 and Bor-5. However, the accelerated pace of work on the Space Shuttle program, and most importantly, the indisputable successes of the Americans in this field, required an adjustment of Soviet plans.
In general, reusable aerospace equipment for domestic developers is by no means something new and unexplored. Taking into account the boosting of programs for building up satellite systems, interplanetary communications and deep-space research, it is safe to say that it is necessary to create reusable launch vehicles, including heavy launch vehicles.
In general, plans to develop a Russian heavy rocket are quite optimistic. In mid-May, Oleg Ostapenko clarified that the Federal Space Program on 2016 – 2025 will still provide for the design of a super-heavy launch vehicle with a payload of 70 – 80 tons. “The PCF is not approved yet, it is being formed. We will make it public soon, ”the head of Roscosmos stresses.
Nowadays, penetration into deep space, declared in the Russian and American promising space programs, however, as well as activity in near-Earth space, is inextricably linked with the creation of reliable, cost-effective, multi-functional transport systems. Moreover, they should be suitable for solving a very wide range of civil and military tasks. Apparently, Russia should pay attention to the creation of reusable space heavy transport.
Today, Russian cosmic thought has finally shifted to long-distance expeditions. This is a phased exploration of the moon - a program to which 40 has not returned for years. In the long term - manned flights to Mars. In this case, we will not discuss the aforementioned programs, but we note that we cannot do without heavy launch vehicles that can bring hundreds of tons of payload into low orbit.
"Angara" and "Yenisei"
There is no military aspect anywhere. The basic element of the American space defense system, which has already become practically a reality, will be the transport system capable of delivering numerous combat platforms and observation and control satellites to Earth’s orbit. It must also ensure the prevention and repair of these devices directly in space.
In general, a system of colossal energy possibilities has been designed. After all, only one combat platform with a hydrogen fluoride laser with an 60 megawatt power has an estimated mass of 800 tons. But efficiency weapons directional energy can only be high if many such platforms are deployed in orbit. It is clear that the total cargo turnover of the next series of “star wars” will amount to tens of thousands of tons, which must be systematically delivered to near-Earth space. But that's not all.
Today, space reconnaissance plays a key role in the use of precision weapons on Earth. This forces both the United States and Russia to constantly increase and improve their orbital groups. Moreover, high-tech spacecraft at the same time requires to provide for their orbital repair.
But back to the lunar topic. At the end of January, when plans for a comprehensive study of the Moon began to sound at full volume, with the prospect of deploying a habitable base there, Vitaly Lopota, head of the leading domestic space corporation Energia, spoke about the possibility of flying to the Moon in terms of launch vehicles.
Sending expeditions to the Moon is impossible without creating super-heavy launch vehicles with a payload of 74 – 140 tons, while the most powerful Russian Proton rocket is launching 23 into orbit. “To fly to the Moon and return, you need a two-launch launch - two 75 tons of missiles, a single-launch flight to the Moon and back without a landing is 130 – 140 tons. If we take the 75-ton rocket as the base, then the practical mission to the moon with a landing is an eight-launch scheme. If the rocket is carrying less than 75 tons, as suggested - 25 – 30 tons, then mastering even the Moon turns into an absurdity, ”said Lopota, speaking at the Royal Readings at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
Denis Lyskov, State Secretary, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, spoke about the need to have a heavy carrier in mid-May. He said that at present, Roskosmos together with the Russian Academy of Sciences is preparing a space exploration program, which will become an integral part of the next Federal space program of Russia for the 2016 – 2025 years. “In order to really talk about the flight to the moon, we will need a carrier of extra-heavy class with a carrying capacity of about 80 tons. Now this project is at the stage of development, in the near future we will prepare the necessary documents for submitting them to the government, ”Lyskov stressed.At present, the largest Russian rocket in service is the Proton, with a payload mass of 23 tons when it is placed in a low orbit and 3,7 tons into a geostationary one. Russia is currently developing the Angara family of missiles from 1,5 to 35 tons. Unfortunately, the creation of this technology has turned into a real long-term construction and the first launch has been postponed for many years, including due to disagreements with Kazakhstan. Now it is expected that the Angara will fly at the beginning of summer from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in a light layout. According to the head of Roskosmos, there are plans to create a heavy version of the "Angara", capable of outputting a payload of 25 tonnes into low orbit.
But such indicators, as we see, are far from sufficient for the implementation of the program of interplanetary flights and the study of deep space. At the royal readings, the head of Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, said that the government was preparing a proposal to develop a super-heavy rocket capable of outputting loads of more than 160 tons to low orbit. “This is a real challenge. In terms of higher numbers, "- said Ostapenko.
It is difficult to say how soon these plans will be translated into reality. Nevertheless, domestic rocket production has a certain groundwork for the creation of heavy space transport. At the end of 80-x, it was possible to create a heavy energy carrier rocket “Energia”, capable of outputting payloads of up to 120 tons in low orbit. If we are not talking about the full reanimation of this program, then there are definitely draft designs of a heavy carrier based on Energia.
On the new rocket, you can use the main part of the "Energy" - successfully operating the LRE RD-0120. Actually, the project of a heavy rocket using these engines exists in the Khrunichev Space Center, which is the head organization for the production of our only heavy carrier, Proton.
This is a transport system "Yenisei-5", the development of which began in 2008 year. It is assumed that the rocket 75 meters in length will be equipped with a first stage with three oxygen-hydrogen LPD RD-0120, the production of which the Voronezh chemical automation bureau launched in 1976 year. According to experts of the Khrunichev Center, it will not be difficult to restore this program, and in the future it is possible to use these engines several times.
However, besides the obvious advantages of the “Yenisei” there is one significant, frankly speaking, today an unavoidable drawback - dimensions. The fact is that according to the plans, the main load of future launches will fall on the Vostochny spaceport being built in the Far East. In any case, heavy and super-heavy promising carriers are supposed to be sent into space from there.
The diameter of the first stage of the Yenisei-5 rocket is equal to the 4,1 meter and does not allow its transportation by rail, at least without a significant bulk and very expensive modernization of the road infrastructure. Because of the problems with transportation at the time had to impose restrictions on the diameter of the main stages of the rocket "Rus-M", which remained on the drawing boards.
In addition to the Khrunichev Space Center, Energia rocket and space corporation (RSC) was engaged in the development of a heavy carrier. In 2007, there they proposed a design for a carrier that uses part of the layout of the Energy rocket. Only the payload in the new rocket was located in the upper part, and not in the side container, like its predecessor.
Benefit and expediency
Americans, of course, we are not a decree, but their heavy transport, the development of which has already entered the final straight, implies partial reuse. Already this summer, SpaceX, a private company, is planning to launch the first heavy-duty launch vehicle, the Falcon Heavy, which will be the largest rocket launched since 1973 of the year. That is, since the time of the American lunar program with the launches of the giant Saturn-5 carrier, created by the father of American launch vehicles Werner von Braun. But if that rocket was intended solely for the delivery of expeditions to the moon and was disposable, then the new one can already be used for Martian expeditions. In addition, it is planned to return to the ground marching steps like the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket (R - Reusable, reused).
Space shuttles are again in demand
The first stage of this rocket is equipped with landing racks used for rocket stabilization and soft landing. After separation, the first stage performs braking by briefly turning on three of the nine engines to ensure entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere at an acceptable speed. Already near the surface, the central engine is turned on, and the stage is ready to carry out a soft landing.
The payload that the Falcon Heavy rocket can lift is 52 616 kilograms, which is about two times more than other heavy rockets - the American Delta IV Heavy, the European Ariane and the Chinese Long March.
Reusability, of course, is beneficial under the condition of high-frequency space work. Studies have shown that the use of disposable complexes is more profitable than a reusable transport system in programs with a rate of no more than five starts per year, provided that the alienation of land under the falling fields of separating parts will be temporary, rather than permanent, with the possibility of evacuating the population, livestock and equipment from hazardous areas .
This reservation is connected with the fact that the cost of land alienation was never taken into account in the calculations, because until recently, losses with rejection or even with temporary evacuation were never compensated and remain difficult to be considered. And they constitute a significant part of the cost of operating rocket systems. With a program scale of more than 75 starts over 15 years, reusable systems have the advantage, and the economic effect of their use increases with increasing numbers.
In addition, the transition from disposable means of removing heavy payloads to reusable leads to a significant reduction in the production of machinery. Thus, when two alternative systems are used in one space program, the required number of blocks is reduced four to five times, the central block cases in 50, and liquid engines for the second stage nine times. Thus, the savings due to the reduction in production when using a reusable booster is approximately equal to the cost of its creation.
Back in the Soviet Union, calculations were made of the costs of after-flight maintenance and repair work on reusable systems. The available factual data obtained by the developers as a result of ground-based bench and flight tests, as well as the operation of the glider of the Buran orbital ship with heat-shielding coating, long-range aircraft were used aviation, reusable liquid engines of the type RD-170 and RD-0120. According to the research results, the costs of maintenance and post-flight repairs account for less than 30 percent of the costs of manufacturing new missile units.
Strangely enough, the idea of reusability was manifested as far back as the 20-s in the German Treaty of Versailles pinned down, which united the European technical community covered by rocket fever. In the Third Reich in 1932 – 1942, a rocket bomber design was successfully developed under the leadership of Eigen Zenger. It was supposed to create an aircraft that, using a rail launch carriage, would accelerate to high speed, then turn on its own rocket engine, rise beyond the atmosphere, from where it made ricochet flights in dense layers of the atmosphere and reach a long range. The device was supposed to start from Western Europe and land on the territory of Japan, it was intended to bomb the US territory. Recent reports on this project were interrupted in 1944.
In the US 50-s, he served as the impetus for the development of the project of a space plane, which preceded the rogoplane "Dayna-Sor". In the Soviet Union, proposals for the development of such systems were considered by Yakovlev, Mikoyan and Myasishchev in 1947, but were not developed due to a number of difficulties associated with technical implementation.
With the rapid development of rocket technology at the end of 40-x - the beginning of 50-s, the need to complete work on a manned rocket-glider bomber was no longer necessary. The rocket industry formed the direction of ballistic-type cruise missiles, which, based on the general concept of their application, found their place in the general defense system of the USSR.
But in the United States, research on the rocket glider was supported by the military. At that time, it was believed that ordinary planes or projectiles with air-jet engines are the best means of delivering charges to the territory of the enemy. Projects were born under the Navajo planning missile program. Bell Aircraft continued to research the spacecraft in order to use it not as a bomber, but as a reconnaissance vehicle. In 1960, a contract was signed with Boeing for the development of the Daina-SOR suborbital reconnaissance rocket plane, which was supposed to be launched by the Titan-3 rocket.
However, the USSR returned to the idea of space planes at the beginning of the 60-ies and deployed work in the Mikoyan Design Bureau at once on two projects of suborbital vehicles. In the first, the projectile was envisaged, in the second, the Soyuz rocket with an orbital plane. The two-stage aerospace system was called the “Spiral” or the “50 / 50” project.
The orbital rocket-launched ship launched from the back of a powerful carrier Tu-95K at high altitude. The Spiral rocket launcher on liquid-propellant rocket engines reached a near-earth orbit, carried out planned work there and returned to Earth, planning in the atmosphere. The functions of this compact flying spacecraft-airplane were much wider than just work in orbit. The full-scale model of the rocket glider made several flights in the atmosphere.
The Soviet project involved the creation of a vehicle weighing more than 10 tons with folding wing consoles. The experimental version of the device in the 1965 year was ready for the first flight as a subsonic analogue. To solve the problems of thermal effects on the structure in flight and the controllability of the device at subsonic and supersonic speeds, flying models were built, which were called “Bor”. Their tests were performed in 1969 – 1973. In-depth study of the results has led to the need to create two models: Bor-4 and Bor-5. However, the accelerated pace of work on the Space Shuttle program, and most importantly, the indisputable successes of the Americans in this field, required an adjustment of Soviet plans.
In general, reusable aerospace equipment for domestic developers is by no means something new and unexplored. Taking into account the boosting of programs for building up satellite systems, interplanetary communications and deep-space research, it is safe to say that it is necessary to create reusable launch vehicles, including heavy launch vehicles.
In general, plans to develop a Russian heavy rocket are quite optimistic. In mid-May, Oleg Ostapenko clarified that the Federal Space Program on 2016 – 2025 will still provide for the design of a super-heavy launch vehicle with a payload of 70 – 80 tons. “The PCF is not approved yet, it is being formed. We will make it public soon, ”the head of Roscosmos stresses.
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