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Russian Launch and Mission Thread


tater

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  On 3/1/2024 at 8:20 PM, Codraroll said:

Is this pathetic attempt at whataboutism in any way relevant to the topic at hand, which is the state of the Russian space agency?

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I think he’s saying that the types of accidents Russia has can be found in the US too, and thus the problem should not be characterized as Russian but rather something every space program goes through.

Russia does have its own problems specific to it but the failure of spacecraft themselves feels like normal teething pains. The “we forgot to turn on the laser altimeter” of IM-1 feels a lot like Nauka’s “we forgot to take the cover off of the star tracker.”

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  On 3/2/2024 at 2:47 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

Russia does have its own problems specific to it but the failure of spacecraft themselves feels like normal teething pains. The “we forgot to turn on the laser altimeter” of IM-1 feels a lot like Nauka’s “we forgot to take the cover off of the star tracker.”

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On the one hand, you have a commercial space startup on its very first mission making rookie errors as, well, a rookie (and still pulling off a mission success).

On the other hand, you have the agency that arguably started spaceflight and should be the ol’ hoss at it making… rookie errors. Not just once, but a pattern, which points to deep systemic troubles within said agency…

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  On 3/2/2024 at 8:00 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

On the one hand, you have a commercial space startup on its very first mission making rookie errors as, well, a rookie (and still pulling off a mission success).

On the other hand, you have the agency that arguably started spaceflight and should be the ol’ hoss at it making… rookie errors. Not just once, but a pattern, which points to deep systemic troubles within said agency…

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Incorrect, the lander was manufactured by Lavochkin, which wasn't in the space business at all when Sputnik launched. And it was managed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, which played no role in Sputnik's launch.

I don't believe there is anything special about Luna-25's failure that can actually be tied to a "modern day" problem of the Russian space program. Since the very beginning, the Soviets and now Russians have had numerous failures of robotic spacecraft. Just look up how many early Luna missions they launched that didn't actually get named because they failed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_programme#Mission_success_rates

Essentially only 1 in 3 missions succeeded overall, with that ratio getting worse for landers in particular. Luna-25 is just a drop in the bucket.

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  On 3/2/2024 at 8:45 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

I don't believe there is anything special about Luna-25's failure that can actually be tied to a "modern day" problem of the Russian space program.

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Luna-25 had a major revision to its control system, likely caused by a combination of reliance on imported electronics and the dragged-out development uncharacteristic of Soviet-era probes.

  On 3/2/2024 at 8:00 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

On the other hand, you have the agency that arguably started spaceflight and should be the ol’ hoss at it making… rookie errors.

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Well, it's not the agency that builds the probe, is it? It's not the ghosts of Korolev and Babakin doing QA. Essentially, Lavochkin are rookies all the same... just with more bureaucracy, thieving and braggadocio.

Process analysis and control engineering do seem to be JPL's magic sauce, and I don't remember them being nearly as much of a thing in the later years of the Soviet Union. The Elon Musk ethos of flying by the seat of the pants seemed to remain quite pervasive, and so precious little systematization was done.

Remember the old story about Khrunichev hiring two guys to hammer out the same piece of Proton hull, for decades, instead of going to the manufacturer and asking for a respec?

Edited by DDE
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Even when nothing failed, it's a time to say that everything's failed.

Even on two successful launches, including the multisat one.

This inspires.

It's nice to see that Starship/SLS/Orion/CST/lunar probes feel good.

But of course, Roskosmos and DPRKosmos are the only bad feelers.

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  On 3/5/2024 at 12:20 AM, tater said:

Note that the goal here was to refill props in satellites not designed for refilling.

Odd anyone would even bother trying.

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Bed bugs do it daily.
(18+ photo, maybe even R)

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Conclusion: sats are bugs.

Edited by kerbiloid
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There's a long, highly critical article by Fyodor Yurhikhin in the GLONASS journal. I dunno if I'll ever get to pulling the whole interview out of a PDF and into a translator, but one point felt particularly novel to me.

Roscosmos is a poor attempt to emulate the success of Rosatom.

Also, fun fact: Roscosmos's Telegram lists Vasilevskaya as a spaceflight participant, not a cosmonaut.

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