A preliminary design of a reusable methane-fueled rocket is ready in Russia

4

RCC "Progress" has prepared a draft design of a promising Russian medium-class methane rocket "Amur LNG". The carrier will be partially reusable and will use a mixture of liquefied methane and oxygen as fuel.

According to a post published by the agency TASS, the aforementioned project is currently undergoing examination at the leading research institutes of the rocket and space industry in Russia. At the same time, many institutions have already given a positive opinion.



The future domestic medium-class rocket Amur LNG will be a two-stage one and, like the American Falcon 9 from Space X, will receive a reusable first stage. According to experts, the aforementioned element can be used up to 10 times. At the same time, in the case of multiple use, the carrier will be able to output to LEO up to 9,5 tons of payload, while with a single one - 12 tons.

The first test launch of the carrier should take place no earlier than 2026. A launch complex for a promising methane rocket will be built at the Vostochny cosmodrome.

Recall that at the beginning of 2020, Dmitry Baranov, General Director of the Progress RCC, announced that the cost of launching the future Amur-LNG reusable methane rocket would be twice as cheap as the launch of the average Soyuz-2, which uses a mixture of kerosene. oxygen.
4 comments
Information
Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.
  1. ont65
    ont65
    +1
    31 August 2021 23: 34
    There is an interview on the network with the general director of NPO Energomash, where he, referring to the opinion of Glushko from the erased 60s, still, despite foreign experience, doubts the feasibility of such projects. Once they did not think of it, could not or did not want to study the density of methane depending on temperature, and the myth of its insufficient density is still circulating even among academicians. It happens. It also mentions the lack of funding for both methane and hydrogen engines, despite the required considerable time frame for work on this topic. The industry has been fed with such sketches since the 90s, and real progress is constantly being carried over to tomorrow. The wind is blowing, the caravan is moving.
  2. Kofesan
    Kofesan
    +2
    1 September 2021 06: 51
    That is, there are no drawings yet, but the whole world is screaming about "breakthrough" ideas. Which, upon closer examination, are old and worn out ideas.

    No, there are exceptions. For example, the third American company after Boeing and Elon Musk, eager for funding. It has already had its first launch. She adopted an old idea, which was abandoned due to imperfect technologies in the 60s. And now we have returned.

    But the PR order for non-existent "victories" on the eve of the elections among ... journalists is visible to the naked eye. But who will implement it? Even the Institute of Higher Education is falling apart. What are the engineers? They are not needed! There are shortages in universities. VO - wasted time for a period of five years. And few people work in their specialty ...

    Lenin carried out electrification and industrialization. Stalin finished. Putin - deindustrialization and deformation. Still "working" on this. And journalists wrote and will write what they are paid for. Who pays? And why? That is the question.
  3. you
    you
    0
    1 September 2021 14: 47
    the second stage must also be made reusable, in the form of the Buran spaceplane
  4. dub0vitsky
    dub0vitsky
    +1
    1 September 2021 23: 38
    Quote: you
    the second stage must also be made reusable, in the form of the Buran spaceplane

    And if you think about it? To raise ballast in the form of a ship into orbit, and rack your brains to a safe descent. You won’t say, but what will be the payload in this case, for the sake of what to fence the garden? 12 tons in the variant of a one-time launch of the first stage. Buran's hull weighed 60 tons, of course, another one is needed for this carrier. I mentioned Buran's weight to say it won't be an easy tin. The tendency to reduce the cost of carriers, due to their relatively large mass production, which reduces the cost of a unit, and an increase in the cost of a payload, due to the saturation of satellites with more and more sophisticated equipment, optics, electronics, more and more long-lived, and also, therefore, more expensive. The carriers do not differ much, the satellites are categorically different. Therefore, a single, very expensive production. Why do we need ballast, a shell that reduces the mass of exactly what is needed in orbit?