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Russia

Russia Announces SLSki Rocket

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 30, 2014
Filed under ,

Russia Gives Green Light to Super-Heavy Rocket Project
“A project to build a new super-heavy carrier rocket was included into the draft new Federal Space Program (FSP) Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko said on Thursday. “A [super] heavy carrier rocket was included into the new FSP. Work is still under way, with the first stage envisaging the construction of a rocket capable of lifting from 70 to 80 metric tons,” Ostapenko said, adding that such rockets would be enough for projects scheduled for the next 20 or 30 years. The second stage of the project is to build a carrier rocket capable of lifting from 100 to 120 metric tons of payload into the low-earth orbit.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

27 responses to “Russia Announces SLSki Rocket”

  1. nasa817 says:
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    I thought April Fool’s Day was April 1, not April 30. They must be joking…

  2. HyperJ says:
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    Ha! I’ll believe it when I see some actual hardware.

  3. Antilope7724 says:
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    “My paper rocket is bigger than your paper rocket!”

  4. dogstar29 says:
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    This is a takeoff on Apollo. They are hoping we will go bankrupt trying to build the SLS to compete with them.

  5. Jonna31 says:
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    Dear Russia,

    I’d be more worried about how I SpaceX and a reusable / landable Falcon with a $7 million per launch price-tag makes Angara entirely obsolete as a commercial launcer, than competing with the SLS.

    Maybe instead of sinking your limited resources into another Buran-style knock off that you wont use, you could help SpaceX push the idea that a reusable first stage should be a market-driven requirement for any medium lift rocket.

    But chances are you won’t, and you’ll just keep pressing on with single use, overpriced rockets that were obsolete before the were even detailed. Oh well. More for SpaceX.

  6. Jonathan A. Goff says:
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    One would have thought that Buran would have taught them how stupid it is to follow NASA’s lead. Especially when NASA’s lead is focused on zip-code engineering…

    • ProfSWhiplash says:
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      Buran was indeed a joke. But that Energia super-heavy lifter was damned impressive!! It could lift more than just a “shuttle-ski”. We’re talking about 120 – 175 tons!!

      This beast expired along with the Soviet Union. But if the Russians had kept it, something the mass of the ISS could have gone up in just 2-3 shots!!

  7. Bill Adkins says:
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    Seems like history may be starting to rhyme on launch.

    This reminds me of when the USSR built a copycat shuttle, Buran. Flew it once, I think, and then realized it was a dangerous, expensive way to go to space. Ultimately Buran ended up in kids playground, iirc.

    U.S. Space Shuttle was probably superior in most all respects, but it too was a dangerous, expensive way to go, though US pride and relative wealth made it too difficult/uncomfortable/politically unacceptable to transition off it at first opportunity, when it was clear it would not meet original goals. Instead, missions and ISS were designed to require shuttle so it had a mission.

    Note: even though the Russian nation went through a devastating economic collapse and national disintegration after the Cold War, the Russian human space program was able to survive somehow, and was key (technically and politically) to salvaging the foundering US human space program in the mid 1990s.

    Will the future US and Russian space dynamic follow a similar pattern? Will history repeat or at least rhyme?

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      just to quibble on a point, the Buran died with the USSR. while it was an expensive project, they had 4 other orbiters under construction at the time of the test launch, but it was the social and economic upheaval that accompanied the collapse of the USSR that really killed the Buran, and more importantly, the Energia launch vehicle it rode on, which was a very sophisticated rocket with tremendous promise.

  8. Littrow says:
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    “They are hoping we will go bankrupt trying to build the SLS to compete with them.”

    I think we’ll do that even without their encouragement.

    It will be interesting to see how far they go with this. The Russians have announced so many different new boosters, modules, flyback vehicles, capsules….most seem to have a lifespan of months and never get beyond the dream stage.

  9. BenjaminBrown says:
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    I’ll believe it when I see it. NASA may have an uncertain future, but at least things aren’t as bad as things are in Russia. They haven’t sent anything beyond low earth orbit since 1988, they are still dealing with the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Putin is crashing the economy/alienating Russia from the rest of the world.

    Not to mention that Russia hasn’t developed anything new since the 80’s. The post-Soviet Russian space program has not proven it self to be more capable than of launching rockets from the 80’s, and its spacecraft from the 60’s. Both updated of course, but that’s about it.

    Throw in Space X, which I think is very likely to eat into their satellite market share in the future and well. Things do not look good at all.

    • sowr says:
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      Hasn’t Russia launched several ESA deep space missions between 1988 and now? Mars and Venus Express comes to mind…

      • BenjaminBrown says:
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        Yes, but those were ESA missions with European hardware not Russian hardware. That was simply launching hardware into space, relatively easy by it self and something Russia has been very successful at. Thus its large market share.

        Designing a new spacecraft and then sending it beyond LEO to do its mission adds even more complexity to the issue. Who knows what brought down Mars 96, it could of been the spacecraft it self though but we’ll probably never know. Phobos-Grunt was a more clear example of Russia’s problems with quality control and brain drain though.

        That is not an easy issue to fix even after 20 plus years. So yes, I am skeptical when it comes to Russia. Anyone would be properly skeptical after watching how they haven’t been able to replace the Soyuz after many so called successors have come and gone. Even if Russia is successful, it may be too little too late.

        Space X will have a heavy lift flying next year, sure it wont be no Russian SLS or SLS proper but it’ll be a real rocket.

    • jivatmanx says:
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      >Throw in Space X, which I think is very likely to eat into their
      satellite market share in the future and well. Things do not look good
      at all.

      Especially with the sanctions http://www.spacenews.com/ar

  10. mfwright says:
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    I guess they can take up same strategy of building a huge rocket at expense of other programs just like us!

  11. AgingWatcher says:
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    Assuming this is for real, perhaps they’re actually competing with Falcon Heavy. Master Musk has taken a dig or two at the Ruskies in recent days.

  12. Terry Stetler says:
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    Given how long they’ve taken to get a 3.5 tonne to LEO version of Angara off the ground….

    Meanwhile, on May 17 SpaceX gives a presentation on the Raptor methalox engine at ISDC. Wonder if the 10 meter beast it’ll fly in will be part of the show?

  13. TimR says:
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    I would clear your cookies and your cache after viewing the linked dot.RU site.

    Putin could remain in office another two decades. Because he has set the rules of the game, eastern Ukraine is in his hands. The May 11 vote in the East could be a first step towards aligning that Ukrainian region for succession. I think ideally, Putin just wants to hamstring Ukraine and leave it to the west to bail it out financially. The east could force a federalism giving more power to ‘regional states’. If Kiev relinquishes, Russia will have a foothold into the operation of the country and corruption will remain rife. With such continued levels of corruption, Ukraine will be a sinkhole to western financial assistance.

    Russia depends on oil and gas revenues. If the west turns its back on Russia and weans western Europe from Russian oil and gas, under the present circumstances, the solution might be for Kiev to abandon the East if they vote in favor of Russian interests. The region would become effectively independent and internationally, probably not recognized. Conditions would get worse and only Russia would be there to help. It could remain in a limbo such as that sliver of property separated from Moldova. Much more costly to Russia, financially, and politically. My point related to this “SLSki” announcement is that Russia is going to be financially stressed for years until Putin is gone and more reasonable Russians attempt to steer the country. Their space program will end up isolated from ESA and NASA. Maybe they will align space interests with China.

  14. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    I’ve no doubt that this will be yet another Russian announcement that will fade into the mists of history with nothing but art and bombastic pronouncements to show for it. There is a long history of this happening before.

  15. NX_0 says:
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    Right.
    To launch Klipr…to Mars.
    Yeah, that’s the ticket.

  16. Tom Sellick says:
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    I have a Russian friend, whom if you said anything negative about Joseph Stalin, he would say: NO! When Stalin was in power there was NO CRIME!

    So one day I said something about our Space program is better than Russia’s. And he went on to say:

    “NO TOM! NO! You American Engineer’s, you take to long to do anything. You analyze EVERYTHING! Centimeter this, Millimeter this. Us Russians, (clasping hands together) we slap together and off it goes!”

    (and by the way, I am not an Egineer)

  17. Tom Sellick says:
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    Russia Gives Green Light to Super-Heavy Rocket Project.
    To bomb, Ukraine?

    (Sorry can’t help it.)

  18. dogstar29 says:
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    You’re right, I’d forgotten that. Wait a minute, SLS was just a plot all along to bankrupt Russia by challenging them to copy it, event though it will consume their entire national wealth! And it’s working! How could I have been so stupid, thinking all along it was an actual plan to go to Mars. Whatever we do, don’t tell the Russins.

    • Anonymous says:
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      “thinking all along it was an actual plan to go to Mars”
      You ever thought it was a plan to go to Mars? Whoa … Take the red pill, dude.

  19. MattW2 says:
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    Yeah, maybe you should demonstrate your competence by finishing a smaller space project first before announcing a big one. Like Kliper, or Angara? Or Nauka? Ares I?