Russia shows off upgraded world’s most powerful rocket engine meant for Soyuz-5
Published time: 12 Mar, 2019 13:06
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Screenshot from an NPO Energomash video
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The RD-170 family is the legacy of the Buran/Energia program, which remains the world’s most-powerful multi-combustion chambered rocket engine. Its producer, NPO Energomash, has adapted it to several launch vehicles over the years, from the two-chamber RD-180 variant for the US Atlas V rocket to the modified RD-171M for the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-2 launches.
Last month the producer created the first engine meant for the future Soyuz-5 rocket, the RD-171-MV. On Tuesday, Energomash and Roscosmos presented a promo video of the new engine variant, confirming some of its characteristics.
The engine, which has improved overheating protection and a new fully domestically-made fuel and oxygen regulation system, weights 10.3 tons and has a thrust of over 800 kN, slightly more than the RD-171M variant. Its turbines and pumps produce an output of 180 MW, which is comparable to three nuclear-propelled icebreakers.
Soyuz-5, the Russian replacement of the Zenit and Proton medium-lift rockets as well as the future launch vehicle for manned low-earth orbit missions, will have a single RT-171MV powering its first stage. The rocket is expected to make its maiden flight in 2022. A variant of the Soyuz-5 is considered as the vehicle to revive the frozen Sea Launch program, which is currently owned by a private Russian company.
Also on rt.com Tsar-rocket: Russia starts developing ultra-heavy Soyuz-5 launch vehicle
The engine may also be used in a future family of heavy and super heavy-lift launch vehicles, which would have three or six RS-171MVs for its first stage depending on configuration.
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https://www.rt.com/news/433955-roscosmos-heavy-rocket-soyuz/
Tsar-rocket: Russia starts developing ultra-heavy Soyuz-5 launch vehicle
Published time: 22 Jul, 2018 15:31 Edited time: 23 Jul, 2018 09:24
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FILE PHOTO © Sergey Mamontov / Sputnik
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A number of Russia’s flagship research and development centers began working on Soyuz-5 project, Roscosmos’ Director-General Dmitry Rogozin said on Twitter. The process would “mobilize all space industry, refresh it and utilize our strong development and production capabilities.”
РКК "Энергия", РКЦ "Прогресс" и НПО "Энергомаш" приступили к работе над созданием "Союз-5". Затем начинаем работу по сверхтяжу. Это позволит мобилизовать всю ракетно-космическую отрасль, обновить её и использовать наш мощный конструкторский, и производственный потенциал pic.twitter.com/U9g9DETjsC
— Дмитрий Рогозин (@Rogozin) July 21, 2018
The first flight model of the Soyuz-5 is likely to be ready by 2022, and the first mock-up model of the rocket has been unveiled at MAKS International Aviation and Space Show back in 2015.— Дмитрий Рогозин (@Rogozin) July 21, 2018
Sources say the 62-meter-long Soyuz-5 is drafted as a medium-capacity launcher with a takeoff mass of about 270 tons. It will replace the lighter Soyuz-2 and will be capable of delivering 9 tons to a low orbit, three times as much as the latest Soyuz-2.1b can do now.
READ MORE: To orbit and back: Russia developing Soyuz-based pilotless craft to retrieve cargo from space
The new booster will be less sophisticated in technological terms, but its price tag will be higher than expected, Russian media reported. Developing the Soyuz-5 would require almost $1bn during the next couple of years, according to Interfax.
The brand new vehicle will be powered by an RD-171 rocket engine for the first stage and the RD-169 for the second. Both engines will burn liquefied natural gas and liquefied oxygen for fuel. The former “is the most powerful engine in the world,” Rogozin said earlier in July, adding, “we call it the Tsar-engine.”
There are currently three Soyuz-2 launch pads that could be refurbished, which are cosmodromes in Baikonur, Plesetsk and the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The decision on which one will be used for Soyuz-5 launches will be taken later.
Meanwhile, Soyuz-5’s first stage could be used as the boosters or even core for a super heavy-lift rocket capable of delivering 80 tons to low Earth orbit from Baikonur.
The namesake of the new rocket might be misleading. The Soyuz name means continuity, but Soyuz-5 has nothing to do with the current, time-proven family of Soyuz launch vehicles which evolved from USSR’s very first R-7 rockets. Rather, Soyuz-5 derives from the Zenit booster first developed for Russia’s Energia Corporation and used on Sea Launch.
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