How is this possible? (New Roscosmos space capsule)

[11of10]

Russians (as well as Soviets before them) have a lot of competent engineers in their own right, so who knows what they might pull out of the hat.

And labor price is cheaper there, and that goes for R&D crew as well, which can reduce prices immensely.

 

[Jovus]

Strikes me as one of two possibilities, one of which hasn't been covered that I've seen:

 

1) Russians are better at rockets than we are. (This is known.) Maybe they're better enough to nail that target, or at least have it as a serious target.

2) Much more likely to my mind: RT is a Russian propaganda service aimed at Westerners. (This is also known.) This doesn't mean that everything they say is untrue, but it does mean they like to stretch the truth to make Russia look good.

[Buster Charlie]

To quote Wikipedia "Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed; during the second launch attempt the N1 rocket crashed back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and exploded, resulting in the largest artificial non-nuclear explosion in human history."

 

 

[Motokid600]

20 minutes ago, Buster Charlie said:

To quote Wikipedia "Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed; during the second launch attempt the N1 rocket crashed back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and exploded, resulting in the largest artificial non-nuclear explosion in human history."

 

 

That's... Kinda irrelevant isn't it? The conditions of that time are what caused the N1 to be a failure. Those conditions are not present today. 

[fredinno]

23 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

I'm thinking the same thing here. Nobody specified that Russia's incredibly cheap reusable rocket will actually work........

What resuable rocket? That angara resuable rocket doesn't seem to be going places...

 

[Red Iron Crown]

Removed from this thread:

- Posts about political correctness
- Posts with baseless accusations of industrial espionage
- Political posts

Please keep it on topic, people.
 

[SgtSomeone]

2 points going through my mind. 
1) The key word 'planned'. I don't think any space vehicle program stays on budget, especially one where the selling point is cheap. It's also included in a budget request rather than a hard project proposal, which makes it extra suspect. And that video looks especially propaganda-like with the moon lander etc. 
2) it's being compared to SpaceX's Dragon. I'll bet that a lot of SpaceX's NASA grant money went towards infrastructure (test stands, manufacturing plants, etc) whereas Roscosmos is free to exclude those costs, either because they already have most of those facilities or because it makes the accounting look better (see point 1 )

Either way though, I'm excited to see another next-gen space vehicle being designed. It could be worse, Russia could spend the money on [redacted to avoid politics] instead. 

As a slightly more on topic question, anyone know how much infrastructure you need to build rockets/spacecraft? It's not really something you can do in a garage (except Copenhagen Suborbital...), but it's not really on par with a nuclear power plant is it? If anyone's better at accounting than me, what's SpaceX's capital utilization rate? Or fixed cost vs variable cost per rocket? or revenue per dollar of capital? Or something?  

Edited March 19, 2016 by SgtSomeone

[insert_name]

id say that powerpoint spacecraft are cheaper than actual ones

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, SgtSomeone said:

2 points going through my mind. 
1) The key word 'planned'. I don't think any space vehicle program stays on budget, especially one where the selling point is cheap. It's also included in a budget request rather than a hard project proposal, which makes it extra suspect. And that video looks especially propaganda-like with the moon lander etc. 
2) it's being compared to SpaceX's Dragon. I'll bet that a lot of SpaceX's NASA grant money went towards infrastructure (test stands, manufacturing plants, etc) whereas Roscosmos is free to exclude those costs, either because they already have most of those facilities or because it makes the accounting look better (see point 1 )

Either way though, I'm excited to see another next-gen space vehicle being designed. It could be worse, Russia could spend the money on [redacted to avoid politics] instead. 

As a slightly more on topic question, anyone know how much infrastructure you need to build rockets/spacecraft? It's not really something you can do in a garage (except Copenhagen Suborbital...), but it's not really on par with a nuclear power plant is it? If anyone's better at accounting than me, what's SpaceX's capital utilization rate? Or fixed cost vs variable cost per rocket? or revenue per dollar of capital? Or something?  

A lot. You need a (few) assembly factor(ies)(unless you plan on making it all in house), a testing facility, airplanes for mid-air tests, lots of powerful computers and office space, a VAB/HAB, and a launch pad+ range, to name a few.

[Pawelk198604]

Too bad I do not know the Russian alphabet

 

[Dr. Jet]

It's PPTS "Federation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_(spacecraft). PTK-NP program suffered a budget cut of 8 billion roubles, but fortunately survived. First launch is sheduled at 2021 and first piloted launch at 2023-2024.

Though one thing in this video is... strange. Video tells about ridiculous 3 days of self-sufficiency, while project presumed 30 days for 4 people. Hm-m-m.... maybe it's a 6-people variant? Less storage but more crew?

[Scotius]

Basically Apollo Program Redux. I will believe when i'll see it on launchpad.

[GoSlash27]

Small organizations are more agile and efficient than large bureaucracies. We see the same effect over here where the private startups are outperforming NASA. Plus there's the political bloat that comes with congressional funding. "This much content must come from congressional district A" and so forth. And finally... it's very difficult to spin up large programs when the funding isn't guaranteed to see it through.

 Not trying to get all political, just stating the facts.

Best,
-Slashy

[1greywind]

On 3/14/2016 at 9:22 PM, fredinno said:

How does it intend to spend so little, especially since the PPTS is more like Orion than anything else?

Answer is simple: latest edition of ФКП (Federal program for Space) fundings in ПТК НП project are on the "breath thin, try not to die" level. So "Russia is willing to spend" doesn't mean "Russia will get" new spacecraft in time.

First: launch vehicle for ПТК-НП - Angara-5П - not yet entered full scale development.

Second: Construction of Launch pad for Angara in Vostochniy is scheduled to start at 2017 and will take 3-4 years to complete.

Third: Infrastructure needed to support manned launches from Vostochniy is planned only after Angara launch pad.

Moon orbiter version of ПТК-НП was dropped from program. In orbital version the craft is not rival to Orion - it is smaller in any dimension. Full active landing (using articulated nozzles and slid gas-generators) was dropped in favor of combined chutes-active landing scheme (chutes are used to slow down to 6-10 m/s in 100 m over ground then craft uses it's proportional system to achieve real soft landing on set of 3 landing legs - not hard one like Soyuz). So save weight latest design move is to use (first time in human spaceflight practice) fully composite body. Sadly, one of the best sources of info about ПТК-ПН, Mark Serov's blog - http://rsc-etestpilot.blogspot.com was not updated since 2015

While "first unmanned test launch of ПТК-НП in 2021 from Vostochniy" is listed ФКП, I'm very skeptical about it - first launch from Vostochniy was originally planned on 2013, and in reality will occur 3 years latter - in April 2016.

Edited March 19, 2016 by 1greywind

[Wjolcz]

I can read it out loud.

Understanding the cyrilics is another thing though.

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, Scotius said:

Basically Apollo Program Redux. I will believe when i'll see it on launchpad.

It's actually more like Constellation era Orion redux. And we all know what happened to that...

[Spaceception]

The intro they used is very similar to the one SpaceX uses, only Russian.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, 1greywind said:

Answer is simple: latest edition of ФКП (Federal program for Space) fundings in ПТК НП project are on the "breath thin, try not to die" level. So "Russia is willing to spend" doesn't mean "Russia will get" new spacecraft in time.

First: launch vehicle for ПТК-НП - Angara-5П - not yet entered full scale development.

Second: Construction of Launch pad for Angara in Vostochniy is scheduled to start at 2017 and will take 3-4 years to complete.

Third: Infrastructure needed to support manned launches from Vostochniy is planned only after Angara launch pad.

Moon orbiter version of ПТК-НП was dropped from program. In orbital version the craft is not rival to Orion - it is smaller in any dimension. Full active landing (using articulated nozzles and slid gas-generators) was dropped in favor of combined chutes-active landing scheme (chutes are used to slow down to 6-10 m/s in 100 m over ground then craft uses it's proportional system to achieve real soft landing on set of 3 landing legs - not hard one like Soyuz). So save weight latest design move is to use (first time in human spaceflight practice) fully composite body. Sadly, one of the best sources of info about ПТК-ПН, Mark Serov's blog - http://rsc-etestpilot.blogspot.com was not updated since 2015

While "first unmanned test launch of ПТК-НП in 2021 from Vostochniy" is listed ФКП, I'm very skeptical about it - first launch from Vostochniy was originally planned on 2013, and in reality will occur 3 years latter - in April 2016.

That's strange... you'd think they'd want to develop the Angara A3 for this, and the LEO version of Federation is only 12T to LEO (thus Angara A3 is in the correct payload class)

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_acts_history.html

Why do they need a even more powerful booster? Even the Lunar version is only 16T, and can be launched by a Angara A5....

Also,

seems to contradict your statement that the lunar misssions are cancelled.

 

EDIT: Ok, they video shows why they want the upgraded Angara, but that's only for the (unlikely) lunar missions. The LEO missions need the A3, and the man-rating costs are likely to be minimal (literally only one stage, and aerodynamic/abort considerationsd due to lacking two boosters).

The savings would still outweigh the costs.

Edited March 20, 2016 by fredinno

[sgt_flyer]

@fredinnohmm, maybe it's because of the launch inclination, as the only current destination would be ISS

aditionnaly, having a more capable booster could allow them to broaden the launch window (they'd have enough reserve delta-V to make a more important dog leg manoeuver during ascent)

[fredinno]

4 minutes ago, sgt_flyer said:

@fredinnohmm, maybe it's because of the launch inclination, as the only current destination would be ISS

aditionnaly, having a more capable booster could allow them to broaden the launch window (they'd have enough reserve delta-V to make a more important dog leg manoeuver during ascent)

Oh, wait, turns out I git the wrong rocket. The Angara rocket for Federation is 5P, chosen because the weight had increased to 14-15T, beyond the capacity of a Angara A3. http://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara5p.html

5P is a Angara 5 w/o an upper stage. Still OP, but far less OP as Angara A5, and allows for mass expansion breathing room. It might also be a decent Zenit replacement, with a Bris-M.

Makes more sense now.

[Nibb31]

11 hours ago, Dr. Jet said:

Though one thing in this video is... strange. Video tells about ridiculous 3 days of self-sufficiency, while project presumed 30 days for 4 people. Hm-m-m.... maybe it's a 6-people variant? Less storage but more crew?

Well, that's the problem with a "jack-of-all-trades" design. A single vehicle designed as both a LEO taxi (as shown in the first part of the video) and for a lunar mission (as shown in the second part of the video) is either going to be seriously lacking (like sending Dragon to the Moon) or seriously overengineered (like using Apollo for Skylab).

[1greywind]

8 hours ago, fredinno said:

seems to contradict your statement that the lunar misssions are cancelled

Well, as I  said before - where are no word about moon orbiter and required launch program in current Federal Program for Space (ФКП) until year 2025. So they can make nice animations and tell stories but they don't have government money for Moon for next 8 years. 

Angara A3 also is not planned to be implemented in flesh - it requires full set of design documents that was not funded to be created. Instead to fill gap of 14-16 ton launch vehicle ФКП lists something called "Феникс" (phoenix) - looks like Russian domestic version of Zenit with RD-171 and 4-m diameter. Some people on http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru forum speculate, that Феникс is also module for new super-heavy modular launchers family (like single Angara URM can be uses as Angara-A1 launcher).

[Frybert]

Multiple threads merged.

[fredinno]

17 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Well, that's the problem with a "jack-of-all-trades" design. A single vehicle designed as both a LEO taxi (as shown in the first part of the video) and for a lunar mission (as shown in the second part of the video) is either going to be seriously lacking (like sending Dragon to the Moon) or seriously overengineered (like using Apollo for Skylab).

Well, the Apollo Rescue Capsule showed you could put 5 people in the Apollo, and possibly squeeze 6- and the modifications were done relatively quickly with a existing Apollo Capusle. The Federation design also uses a different SM for LEO and BLEO, so I think it's well equipped for both LEO and BLEO.

15 hours ago, 1greywind said:

Well, as I  said before - where are no word about moon orbiter and required launch program in current Federal Program for Space (ФКП) until year 2025. So they can make nice animations and tell stories but they don't have government money for Moon for next 8 years. 

Angara A3 also is not planned to be implemented in flesh - it requires full set of design documents that was not funded to be created. Instead to fill gap of 14-16 ton launch vehicle ФКП lists something called "Феникс" (phoenix) - looks like Russian domestic version of Zenit with RD-171 and 4-m diameter. Some people on http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru forum speculate, that Феникс is also module for new super-heavy modular launchers family (like single Angara URM can be uses as Angara-A1 launcher).

How are they supposed to domesticate Zenit? It would pretty much be like making an entirely new rocket, as they'd need new tooling. And I just showed a link showing the Federation was using a Angara A5 without a 2nd stage for LEO missions (RussianSpaceWeb.com)
 

And the only Super Heavy Launcher that is likely to get off the ground in the near future is SLS.

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, fredinno said:

Well, the Apollo Rescue Capsule showed you could put 5 people in the Apollo, and possibly squeeze 6- and the modifications were done relatively quickly with a existing Apollo Capusle. The Federation design also uses a different SM for LEO and BLEO, so I think it's well equipped for both LEO and BLEO.

The SMs look the same to me. The Lunar mission is carrying an extra Block-D upper stage, probably for LOI.

4 hours ago, fredinno said:

How are they supposed to domesticate Zenit? It would pretty much be like making an entirely new rocket, as they'd need new tooling. And I just showed a link showing the Federation was using a Angara A5 without a 2nd stage for LEO missions (RussianSpaceWeb.com)
 

And the only Super Heavy Launcher that is likely to get off the ground in the near future is SLS.