Following the maiden flight of the Angara-1.2PP space vehicle in July 2014, Russian engineers hoped to quintuple their success with the liftoff of a five-booster configuration of the new-generation rocket. The first such vehicle to fly was designated Angara-A5-1LM, where 1LM stood for the "1st flight machine." Angara-5 will become Russia's most powerful space booster and will eventually replace the nation's workhorse Proton rocket. Unlike Proton, all members of the Angara family will employ relatively non-toxic propellant on all but one upper stage.
Flight program
As of beginning of 2014, official Russian sources had released no information on the flight profile of the first Angara-5 rocket, however given its primary role as a carrier of satellites to the geostationary orbit located 36,000 kilometers above the Equator, it was safe to assume that the first launch will demonstrate the capability to do just that. The rocket will be equipped with four URM-1 boosters, acting as the first stage, and a single "core" URM-1, performing the role of the second stage. All five URM-1s will ignite on the ground, however the central core will operate at lower thrust during the part of the flight. As a result, the four first-stage boosters will consume their propellant and separate first, followed by the separation of the "core" URM-1 booster. The third-stage URM-2 then will take over the powered phase of the flight, delivering its payload section to the initial Earth orbit.
According to Yuri Bakhvalov, Designer General of KB Salyut, which developed the Angara rocket, the payload section will include an upper stage (Briz-M borrowed from the Proton-M rocket), and a dummy satellite. The Briz-M will likely demonstrate a typical mission to deliver a satellite to the so-called geostationary transfer orbit from where the payload would typically transfer itself to the final geostationary orbit with the use of its own propulsion system. Such a mission profile is routinely followed by the Proton-M rocket and many other space vehicles around the world.
On July 14, the first deputy to Roskosmos head Aleksandr Ivanov confirmed in interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station that during its first mission in December, Angara-5 would deliver a mockup of payload to a geostationary orbit.
In an interview with the ITAR-TASS news agency in August 2014, the head of GKNPTs Khrunichev Vladimir Nesterov said that during the first Angara-5 mission, Briz-M will deliver the mockup into a geostationary orbit, however, later, it will be sent into a special burial orbit safe for any active satellites.
Long road to the launch pad
In 2009, when Russian officials initially mentioned a test launch of the Angara-5 rocket, it had to be delayed from the second half of 2011 to the first quarter of 2013. During 2011, the International Launch Services, ILS, a US-based division of GKNPTs Khrunichev responsible for marketing Proton rockets to commercial customers, was offering to deliver a satellite on the first Angara-5 rocket at a discounted rate. However at the beginning of 2013, Khrunichev's publication reported that the vehicle would carry a simulated payload during the mission. On March 1, 2013, GKNPTs Khrunichev announced that the first Angara-A5 rocket had been under development, with its pneumatic and hydraulic systems for tanks and other components undergoing assembly at the time.
By the end of May 2013, the first launch of the Angara-5 rocket was promised in November 2014, however at the beginning of that year, industry sources said that Angara-5 had absolutely no chance of flying before the end of 2014. Most optimistically, the first Angara-5 would be shipped to Plesetsk before the end of 2014, in preparation for launch sometime in 2015. In April 2014, officials at GKNPTs Khrunichev still insisted that the launch would take place in December 2014. The Kremlin officials also confirmed the end of December launch date for Angara-5 after the succesfull flight of the Angara-1.2PP rocket in July.
Pre-launch processing and testing
Two trains carrying components of the Angara-A5 (1LM) to Plesetsk were reported departing GKNPTs Khrunichev in Moscow for Plesetsk during the night from July 14 to July 15, 2014.
On Aug. 27, 2014, Russian military officials announced that integrated tests of the first Angara-A5 rocket had been initiated in Plesetsk. By the end of October, Russian authorities released first TV footage from Plesetsk showing five URM-1 boosters of the first and second stage integrated with the URM-2 booster of the second stage.
By November 8, the first Angara-A5 rocket was also topped with a Briz-M upper stage and a payload simulator known as IPM, Russian officials said. According to a spokesman for the Russian Air and Space Forces, VKS, Colonel Aleksei Zolotukhin quoted by TASS news agency, the fully assembled Angara-A5 had already been placed on its transporter/erector inside the assembly building of Technical Facility No. 41 and its personnel was conducting final operations before the rollout of the rocket to the launch pad (for tests). Zolotukhin again confirmed that the first launch of the rocket had been planned for December 2014.
Testing on the pad
On November 10, 2014, the first Angara-A5 rocket was rolled out from the assembly building to the launch pad at Site 35 in Plesetsk, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced. The testing on the pad, including electric checks of the rocket and tests of launch equipment, was scheduled to continue for seven days in preparation for the launch in December, the Russian military said.
Angara-5 might need new place to crash its boosters
On September 10, a poster on the online forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine reported that a recent trip of a survey team to the locations where URM-1 boosters were to be dropped during the first launch of the Angara-5 rocket, deemed them unacceptable for the mission. The group discovered that an extremely dense forest at those sites would make it impossible to recover the remnants of the boosters.
According to a typical flight profile, four strap-on boosters of the Angara-5 rocket separate at an altitude of around 82 kilometers around three and a half minutes in flight. They would fall some 850 kilometers to the east from the rocket's launch site in Plesetsk. The central (core) module would separate less than two minutes later at an altitude of 148 kilometers and then would crash 2,320 kilometers downrange.
By the end of September, semi-official Interfax news agency quoting an unnamed official at Roskosmos reported that the first launch of the Angara-5 rocket would "certainly take place after December 25," essentially confirming the delay of the mission until 2015. In turn, this apparent "trial balloon" triggered an avalanche of official denials of any delays and new promises to fire Angara-A5 on December 25. On October 5, the official RIA Novosti news agency quoted the commander of the Air and Space Defense Forces, VKS, Aleksandr Golovko as saying that "all work at the launch site goes as scheduled. On November 20 we have to conduct tests on the launch complex." Golovko apparently referred to a rollout of the Angara-A5 rocket to the launch pad for fit tests. He left a little wiggle room by saying that the launch date would be determined by the State Commission based on the readiness of the launch vehicle.
Heavy Angara-5 to fly next
