Russia prepares to launch new Soyuz-5 rocket

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The Chemical Automation Design Bureau has completed the assembly of a flight prototype of the second-stage engine for the promising Soyuz-5 launch vehicle. The first test launch is scheduled for December of this year.

The medium-class carrier will be able to launch up to 17 tons of payload into low Earth orbit, which is twice the capabilities of the current Soyuz-2.1b rocket and comparable to the American Falcon 9 in a reusable configuration.



It is worth noting that the new rocket will occupy an important niche between light and heavy carriers, ensuring the optimal cost of launching medium-class satellites and promising manned ships. Its creation was a response to the breakdown of cooperation with Ukraine in the production of Zenit rockets, which previously performed similar tasks.

At the same time, the Soyuz-5 power plant is of particular interest. The first stage is equipped with a modernized RD-171MV engine, the most powerful liquid rocket engine in the world. Weighing 10 tons, it develops a thrust of 800 tons, while maintaining high reliability and efficiency. This unit is a further development of the legendary RD-170, created for the Soviet super-heavy rocket Energia.

The second stage received an equally advanced RD-0124MS engine with a record specific impulse of 361 units among all oxygen-kerosene power plants. Such indicators were achieved thanks to the use of digital design, special aluminum alloys and innovative welding methods.

However, the Russian space industry is not only busy with Soyuz-5. At the same time, the Russian Federation is developing the reusable Amur-SPG rocket on methane, the first tests of which are scheduled for 2030. And NPO Lavochkin has completed tests of the landing device for the automatic station Luna-27, despite the previous failure with Luna-25.

The domestic space program continues to develop, demonstrating the ability to create competitive Technology even in the face of external restrictions.

As other countries have shown, including the recent failure of Japan's Hakuto-R lunar module, space exploration is inevitably fraught with difficulties. However, it is persistence and a willingness to learn from mistakes that make it possible to achieve breakthroughs in this complex field.

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  1. frightening voices in the willow branches
    frightening voices in the willow branches
    +1
    17 June 2025 18: 23
    Space exploration is inevitably fraught with difficulties. Even more difficulties for those who have LOST their skills and technologies and are forced to invent what has already been forgotten...
    BUT, no one is surprised by the deadlines? Well, look for an example and comparison, what results without all these "digital" TITANS of cosmonautics of the USSR times gave immediately after the end of the 2nd world, and what we have now...
    In essence, we have rolled back to the very beginning of the space era - timid satellite flights around the planet and nothing further. And all the projects about giving the reactor to the Chinese Lunar base are generally from the category of "thank you for not disdaining our presence". They don't even remember Zeus anymore...
    1. VatnikRKKA
      VatnikRKKA
      -1
      18 June 2025 22: 38
      What nonsense are you talking about? What titans after WWII?
      After the Second World War there were a bunch of aviation design bureaus and the German V-2.
      1. frightening voices in the willow branches
        frightening voices in the willow branches
        0
        19 June 2025 10: 01
        Look at the timeframes, what should I tell you: 1945 - end of the war and then: 1 launch, first satellite, first man in space, first station, first spacewalk.... Timeframes from design work to implementation. Now, this is just a joke in the style of "either the donkey dies or the padishah", and the money is simply stupidly spent in embezzlement. In principle, we are marking time and losing technologies for automatic stations and landings on other celestial bodies.
        1. VatnikRKKA
          VatnikRKKA
          0
          19 June 2025 12: 17
          Are you ready to live in a dugout? But those titans did.
          1. frightening voices in the willow branches
            frightening voices in the willow branches
            -1
            19 June 2025 13: 33
            Don't be fooled by the comparisons. What it's like not to wash for weeks and to wear government clothes, petrified by dirt, I unfortunately still remember from my youth in the service.
            In the same impoverished North Korea, a holiday of giving out apartments to scientists took place recently - in houses of advanced comfort and convenience of living - an entire block was set aside for those who move the world with their minds, and not with money...
            The question was that they understand the value of these people for the survival of the country and its welfare, and here, despite the star, I still can't orient my son where he should go to enroll with his successes in chemistry, mathematics and biology. Look at the places at universities and the undoubted growth of fees in education - there is only one conclusion: educated people are NOT NEEDED in the Russian Federation... And conversations with those who have already received their degrees, gained experience and got a feel for what is happening, and completely inspire a melancholy understanding of the prospects of science in the Russian Federation - there are none...
            1. VatnikRKKA
              VatnikRKKA
              0
              19 June 2025 15: 32
              What educated? The Soviet Union produced educated people in its time, but there was no one to work.
      2. frightening voices in the willow branches
        frightening voices in the willow branches
        0
        19 June 2025 10: 08
        Regarding TITANS: Korolev, Chalomey. Glushko. Keldysh. Ivanovsky.
        finally, the German Werner von Braun - he is also an associate and a titan. now only Musk can stand with them in his space obsession and passionarity. in the Russian Federation there is nothing even close
        1. VatnikRKKA
          VatnikRKKA
          0
          19 June 2025 12: 21
          You don't really understand what cosmonautics is today.
          Cosmonautics is in a dead end technologically. And until this dead end is resolved, titans will find other uses for themselves.
          1. frightening voices in the willow branches
            frightening voices in the willow branches
            -1
            19 June 2025 13: 19
            Heart of gold, we came to a dead end at the end of the 20th century. ENERGY-BURAN, like the mega-rockets Mask, is a convulsion.
            Over the past 25 years of the new century, we have not seen a single real project to overcome the impasse. And the worst thing is precisely in the Russian Federation, where space has degenerated to satellites and orbital transportation.
            ZEUS, it looks like it's just another picture from ROSCOSMOS, with attempts to squeeze out some money for cutting
            1. VatnikRKKA
              VatnikRKKA
              0
              19 June 2025 15: 40
              I don't understand something, is the dead end only in Roscosmos? Or is it a planetary dead end?
              About squeezing. You're talking nonsense.
              The Roscosmos program is:
              1. Construction of your own spaceport
              2. Means of removal (it is unlikely that anything will change here in the next 50 years, so we need to saw reusability). Of course, there is an oddity - Yenisei, but this is not on my salary.
              3. Preservation and increase of the Soviet reserve in manned space exploration (Ross)
              4. Communications and intelligence
              5. Nuclear energy (because it is the future)!
              Everything else went under the knife.
              Basically, everything is to the point!
  2. kovaleff
    kovaleff
    -1
    17 June 2025 19: 39
    other missiles needed to be prepared, but the knees were weak
    1. VatnikRKKA
      VatnikRKKA
      -1
      18 June 2025 22: 38
      What missiles? Specify
      1. frightening voices in the willow branches
        frightening voices in the willow branches
        -1
        19 June 2025 13: 23
        You shouldn't have downvoted VatnikRKKA.
        He is right about the most important thing - the age of chemical rockets has reached the limit of its perfection. No matter how hard someone tries to play with fuel and stages, tweak something in the engines, this is the limit of the capabilities of chemical rockets and therefore the limit of the possibilities of launching a conventional kilogram into a certain orbit for adequate money (well, at least like the lifting capacity of an aircraft).
        1. VatnikRKKA
          VatnikRKKA
          0
          19 June 2025 15: 49
          Regarding the liquid propellant rocket engine.
          Well, there are still some unselected reserves, the same detonation, but in principle it will not change anything. Liquid rocket engines will be carried into orbit, that is their ceiling. Nuclear energy is needed for planetary flights.
  3. prior
    prior
    +1
    18 June 2025 11: 02
    In the country, of all previously known values, only one thing remains - money.
    But Russian space does not bring quick profits.
    So, what is Russian space? Who needs it?
    All that remains is to slowly saw away at the budget.
  4. ont65
    ont65
    0
    18 June 2025 21: 00
    It should be noted that Soyuz-5 is replacing Proton for Baikonur, the launches of which have been practically curtailed, despite the remaining stock of launch vehicles. Launch activity is currently very low. Its large-scale production is not planned, despite the fact that large plans have been outlined for the formation of satellite groups for various purposes. And Soyuz-SPG is being prepared for Vostochny. Reconstructions, transfers, replacements are underway, but there has been no real 'output' for years, and the effectiveness of all this is also unclear.
    1. VatnikRKKA
      VatnikRKKA
      0
      18 June 2025 22: 41
      It should be noted that Soyuz5 is not a replacement for Proton, but the first stage of Yenisei. It is being developed at Baikonur because Zenit is there, and for no other reason.
      Russia will leave Baikonur, because it will not be needed once Vostochny is built.