Russian space related news and developments

Virendra

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Russia launches 3 satellites to complete global navigation sys

Russia on Sunday successfully launched three navigation satellites to complete its global navigation satellite system for civilian and military use, which was in disarray after the Soviet collapse in 1991. A Russian Proton-M SLV launched the three GLONASS-M satellites from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. "It was text book launch, the Proton rocket lifted off at 13:25 pm Moscow time (15:55 IST).

"After three hours the three GLONASS-M spacecraft will be placed into orbit to complete the formation of the Russian GLONASS satellite cluster," a spokesman of the Roskosmos federal space agency was quoted as saying by Rossiya 24 TV channel.

After six weeks the freshly launched navigation satellites will be commissioned to provide full global coverage to the civilian and military users.

For its global coverage GLONASS needs a cluster of 24 satellites.

Russia currently has a total of 26 GLONASS series spacecraft in orbit, but three of them are not operational.

The three GLONASS-M satellites launched today will allow Russia to operate a complete GLONASS network of 24 operational satellites and have several satellites in reserve. The civilian segment will be 'free to air' for owners of GLONASS receivers.

Under an intergovernmental agreement the Indian Armed Forces, will have access to the space-based Russian system, a rival of the US Pentagon controlled GPS.

China, which was denied access to the military segment of GLONASS by Russia, is building its own satellite navigation system which it is expected to share with Pakistan.

Stung by the switching off GPS during the Balkan war by the Pentagon, which left thousands of GPS users helpless for some time, including civilian aircraft, European Union is also in the process of creating its Galileo system.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-...te-global-navigation-sys/Article1-634732.aspx

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Virendra
 

shubhamsaikia

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<a title="Russia and China conduct joint navy drills: Russian convoy going to navy drills" href="http://rt.com/online-exclusive/galleries/russia-china-naval-drills/">
<img alt="Russia and China conduct joint navy drills &mdash; Russian convoy going to navy drills" src="http://rt.com/files/online-exclusive/galleries/russia-china-naval-drills/jjj/id275fd33c28a7294416e7f301364f55d_-961779.png"></a>
 

Zebra

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Russian Plans New Aerospace University .

MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti)

Russia is planning a new aerospace university to produce a new generation of professionals for the aviation and space industries, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Saturday.

"We have plans connected with the creation of a modern aerospace university, where we will produce a broad range of specialists, for aviation, and also the rocket and space industries," he said during a visit to the Khrunichev rocket factory north of Moscow.

Rogozin invited specialists from the center to "join the team" for a visit to the Zhukovsky flight research airfield on May 18, where the plan will be discussed.

Russian Plans New Aerospace University | Russia | RIA Novosti
 

Austin

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Russian Space Industry Needs 'Extreme Measures' - Chief

Russia's space sector needs to carry out sweeping reform in order to remain competitive, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Thursday evening.

"Unless we undertake extreme measures, the sector will be uncompetitive within three-four years," Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin said during a lecture to science and technology students.

A recent spate of failed launches is "only the litmus test," he said. "The root causes are much deeper and more important."

Russian satellites could end up priced out of the market because per-capita productivity in the aerospace sectors of competing countries is two to four times higher, he warned. "If nothing changes, we won't be able to sell [Russian space technology] in 2015, because Western equipment will be priced 33 to 50 percent lower," Popovkin said.

In order to raise productivity, Roscosmos ought to be converted into a space industry holding company that is not under direct state control. The new structure would be able to optimize headcounts at enterprises in the sector and better compete to hire the best people, he said.

Popovkin suggested that the "lower stages" in the production chain should pass into private hands, and called for a fundamental shift in the state's focus from producing a final product to providing conditions conducive to success.

Russia experienced a number of unsuccessful space launches in the past 12 months, losing several commercial satellites and the Phobos-Grunt Mars mission ended in failure. This past August, a Proton-M rocket carrier with a Briz-M booster failed to bring two satellites into the target orbit.
 

SajeevJino

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Russia to spend billions on asteroid defense


Moscow believes an operable national defense against threats from outer space can be built within 10 years' time. The 500-kiloton explosion of a space bolide above the Urals region has sped-up allocation of some $2 billion to prevent future threats.




Russian scientists have presented a federal program designed to counteract space threats. Elaborated by the Institute of Astronomy at Russia's Academy of Sciences and the Central Engineering Research Institute, Russia's leading space industry enterprise, the program has already been approved by Roskosmos, the national space agency.

The program has nothing to do with Hollywood sci-fi movie scenarios; no lasers, annihilators or Bruce Willis drilling a huge peace of rock rushing towards Earth.

The system will consist of a network of robotic telescopes monitoring space around our planet, some of them delivered to orbit, others operating from the surface.

Destruction of an asteroid in emergency cases may be performed by a rocket with a powerful megaton-class thermonuclear warhead. If the threat is detected early, more advanced means of changing an asteroid's orbit may be considered.

The program costing 58 billion rubles (over $1.9 billion) has already been handed over to the head of Russia's defense industry, Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin who is expected to present it to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Lidia Rykhlova from the Institute of Astronomy (RAS) who presented the project, reported that Russia will need to modernize and fully computerize the 60 cm lens telescopes it already has. Several larger telescopes with 2 meter lens will have to be additionally installed.

Rykhlova announced that an analytical center will be created to collect the data from various sources and analyze it in real time mode.

Professor of the Moscow State University, head of the laboratory for space monitoring Vladimir Lipunov told Interfax news agency that it will take about two years to modernize all Russia's existing nine telescopes with the diameter of the lens of 40 centimeters and unite them into one network. A network of larger telescopes across the globe could be ready in five years.

"It will cost a mere trifle. What [Russian billionaire] Roman Abramovich paid for Chelsea [football club] would cover all the costs of the project," Lipunov said.

According to Forbes during the eight years of owning Chelsea Abramovich spent $1.3 billion on the football club.

Lipunov stressed that tracking and forecasting space threats is more real and efficient than engaging air defense systems to deal with meteorites in the atmosphere, as people could be evacuated from an impact zone in advance.

Asteroid threat is growing by the year

There are a lot of asteroids orbitingclose to Earth and every year up to 1,000 more are being discovered," Lidia Rykhlova said, specifying that three years ago the number of known asteroids passing close to our planet was about 7,000 and now their number has grown up to around 9,400.

Most of the relatively large asteroids, with a diameter of one kilometer and larger are already known.

"We know about 90 per cent of kilometer-class asteroids, their orbits are well known and predictable. As for the smaller 40-50 meter ones – we still have insufficient observation apparatus. The more we observe – the more of them we find," Rykhlova acknowledged.

If the space object is discovered beforehand, at least a month prior to possible collision with Earth, there is time to find out its size and consider various measures of its elimination.

The execution of a really complicated operation will require at least a year, Rykhlova pointed out.

"Therefore our emergency aid is a rocket with a nuclear warhead," she concluded.

Russia to spend billions on asteroid defense &mdash; RT
 

SajeevJino

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Russia To Send Asteroid Apophis Back into Deep Black Space


Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos will start working on a project to save planet Earth from the collision with Asteroid Apophis, which, as scientists predict, may happen in 2036.


natoly Perminov, the head of Roscomos, said in an interview with the Voice of Russia Radio Station that the flight trajectory of the massive asteroid was gradually approaching the Earth. A scientist, who shared the information with Mr. Perminov, also told the official that Apophis was three times as large as the legendary Tunguska Meteorite.

NASA specialists, though, believe that the collision is extremely unlikely.

"I don't remember exactly, but it seems that by 2032 Apophis will ram into Earth," Perminov said.

As a matter of fact, Apophis will be flying in close vicinity to Earth in 2036.

Mr. Perminov also said that his organization had already received a number of projects to break the flight path of the asteroid. The head of Roscosmos said that it could be possible to build a special purpose spaceship which would allow to avoid the collision and preserve the asteroid without any nuclear explosions.

Russian specialists will choose the strategy to save planet Earth from Apophis and then invite world's leading space agencies to join the project.

Asteroid Apophis, named in honor of the Ancient Egyptian God of Chaos, was discovered in 2004. The asteroid is expected to near Earth several times from 2029 to 2036.

NASA scientists initially said that the asteroid posed a serious danger to the Earth, but they later revised their predictions.


Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However, a possibility remains that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis will pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about 600 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036.

Additional observations of the trajectory of Apophis revealed the keyhole will likely be missed and on August 5, 2006 Apophis was lowered to a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. As of October 7, 2009, the impact probability for April 13, 2036, is calculated as 1 in 250,000. An additional impact date in 2037 was also identified; the impact probability for that encounter is calculated as 1 in 12.3 million.

Anatoly Perminov also shared his thoughts about future flights to the Moon and Mars.

"I am certain that man will fly to Mars, but it will happen after a manned mission to the moon. It will most likely happen in 2032," the official said. "I know that the European Space Agency, the USA and Russia have different perspectives in their space research programs. I know that the ESA is concentrated on a mission to Mars, whereas Roscosmos and NASA are busy with lunar exploration programs," Perminov added.

Perminov also said that in 2010 Russia would be prepared to become fully accountable for the transport support of the International Space Station.

"Russia is prepared to execute this goal. We have been cooperating with NASA for two years on this subject and we finally signed the agreements stipulating the delivery of astronauts to the ISS on board Russian Soyuz booster rockets," Perminov said.

Russia To Send Asteroid Apophis Back into Deep Black Space - English pravda.ru
 

bose

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^^^ Russia has 15 successful lunches this year itself... 7 for USA"¦
 

TrueSpirit

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lookieloo

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Talk about cutting off your own nose to spite your face... Aside from already having everything it needs to build the engine itself, the US also has other options for reaching space without Russian engines (Delta IV, Falcon 9). An export ban would probably hurt the Russians more than us.
Russian rocket engine export ban could halt US space program
Russian rocket engine export ban could halt US space program

Russia's Security Council is reportedly considering a ban on supplying the US with powerful RD-180 rocket engines for military communications satellites as Russia focuses on building its own new space launch center, Vostochny, in the Far East.

A ban on the rockets supply to the US heavy booster, Atlas V, which delivers weighty military communications satellites and deep space exploration vehicles into orbit, could put a stop to NASA's space programs - not just military satellites.

An unnamed representative of Russia's Federal Space Agency told the Izvestia newspaper that the Security Council is reconsidering the role of Russia's space industry in the American space exploration program, particularly the 2012 contract on delivering to the US heavy-duty RD-180 rocket engines.

Previously, Moscow has not objected to the fact that America's Atlas V boosters rigged with Russian rocket engines deliver advanced space armament systems into orbit. If a ban if put in place, however, engine delivery to the US would probably stop altogether, starting from 2015.

Over the last decade, most of NASA's Atlas V heavy rocket launches, performed by the United Launch Alliance (a Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture), were carried out using Russian RD-180 dual-nozzle rocket engines, a legacy of the Soviet Buran space shuttle program and its unparalleled rocket booster Energia, which could put 100 tons of spacecraft or satellites into orbit.

Military payloads
It is widely believed that many Atlas V launches have a military payload. Such Lockheed Martin-designed military spacecraft include the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) series of communications satellites launched for Air Force Space Command, the mysterious super-secret Palladium at Night communication platform designed for the US Navy's Ultra-High Frequency (UFO) Follow-On program and most certainly all three launches of Boeing's X-37 unmanned demonstrator spacecraft. These are only a part of the military space missions undertaken by Atlas V rockets, boosted by RD-180 engines

A ban could also affect the US's non-military space exploration launches, which are also highly dependable on the Atlas V rocket and RD-180 engines. The most famous and challenging among them are NASA's New Horizons spacecraft mission, now traveling to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt (launched in 2006), and the Curiosity Mars rover (launched in 2011) currently operating on the Red Planet

A number of experts told Izvestia that termination of the rocket engine contract would not be a good idea commercially for NPO Energomash, which produces the rockets, because at the moment it makes RD-180 engines exclusively for the US space industry. The rockets typically take Energomash 16 months to produce.

If production of the RD-180 engine is stopped, the enterprise would have to find other contracts to keep production line and experienced staff busy.

"In my opinion, stopping the export of rocket engines to the US is stupid, as we would suffer financial and reputational losses," Ivan Moiseyev, scientific head of the Space Policy Institute, told Izvestia. "The US would not suffer much and would definitely continue with military space launches, while Russia would have to stop production of the RD-180, because no one else needs the RD-180 engine."

However, many space experts believe that the US would find it difficult to quickly replace the Russian rockets.

However, Energomash could find other orders soon. Russia plans to start space launches from its new, multibillion-dollar Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East in 2015. Vostochny will host a heavy rocket class launch pad, which means the producer of world's most powerful rocket engines will be kept busy for many years to come.

The RD-180 is equivalent to half of the Soviet-era Energia booster, the most powerful liquid rocket engine ever made by man. With 20 million horsepower output, the Soviet-era RD-170 was about 5 percent more powerful, yet 1.5 times smaller, than American's F-1 first stage rocket engine made for the Saturn V booster of the Apollo lunar program.

Reportedly, when the Energia booster with the Buran space shuttle was launched in November 1988, the massive concrete bays paving the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan were flying around like dry leaves, due to the immense power coming from the four RD-170 engines, which blasted the 2,400-ton rocket booster into space.

In the post-Soviet era, Russian-US rocket engine cooperation started back in 1996, when America's General Dynamics Company bought exclusive rights for use of RD-180 in the US, later selling it to Lockheed Martin for its Atlas rocket program. NPO Energomash, the producer of unique engines based in Moscow's suburb Khimki, signed a contract for production of 50 RD-180 engines and an option for the production of another 51 units.

A specially created joint venture, RD-AMROSS, between NPO Energomash and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, has already delivered 63 engines to the US worth $11-15 million apiece, reportedly 40 of them have already been used. In December 2012, a new contract was signed to deliver another 31 engines. But this contract is now being reconsidered by Russia's Security Council, according to Izvestia.
 

cobra commando

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Russia to Boost Manpower on New Space Center
Construction Site



[highlight]Vostochny Space Center being under construction in Uglegorsk (Archive)[/highlight]


UGLEGORSK, Russia, April 16 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will significantly boost the number of workers involved in the construction of its new Far Eastern Vostochny space launch center, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting Wednesday. "We are going to increase by several fold the manpower currently engaged at the site, disregarding climate or weather conditions," said Rogozin, who oversees the space and defense industries. The minister added that night work shifts would be added so that construction can be carried out round-the-clock. The new Vostochny cosmodrome is being built near the town of Uglegorsk in Russia's Far East. Its first launch pad is planned to become operational next year, with a maiden operational launch slated for 2018. Sergei Makarov, the chief of the company tasked with building Vostochny's first launch pad, said the work would commence on May 15. Moscow is building Vostochny, which will host the country's new Angara rocket, to reduce its reliance on its main Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. Russia leases Baikonur, which boasts 15 launch pads for manned and unmanned space launches, from Kazakhstan for an annual rental fee of $115 million.

Russia to Boost Manpower on New Space Center Construction Site | Russia | RIA Novosti
 

cobra commando

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Russia Set to Boost Space
Cooperation With India, China


MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is set to develop its space cooperation with India and China, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos Oleg Ostapenko said on Thursday. "Recently, we received an invitation from Japan to discuss an array of questions," he added. The announcement was made amid threats of Russia's western partners to freeze or cut cooperation with Russia amid tensions over Ukraine and Crimea secession. NASA threatened to cut space ties with Russia, but Roscosmos has yet received no official notifications. The Russian space chief said that despite belligerent rhetoric, Russia's space cooperation with European partners remains unharmed. "We are now communicating with the space agencies of France, Germany and, particularly, with the European [Space Agency]," he told journalists. Russia and its BRICS partners India and China have a long history of cooperation, including in space. In July 2004, Russia and India signed a protocol to boost cooperation in space including space launches and joint development of the GLONASS satellite navigation system. Deputy head of Roscosmos Sergey Savelyev said in mid-April that Russia and China are coordinating on major future research projects in space and agreed last year to expand it.

Russia Set to Boost Space Cooperation With India, China | Russia | RIA Novosti
 

cobra commando

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Russia to Begin Moon
Colonization in 2030 – Report


MOSCOW, May 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia has drafted a program for colonization of the moon, and plans to send the first expeditions to build a permanent lunar base in 2030, the Russian Izvestia daily said Thursday, citing an official document. "The moon is a space object for the future exploration by terrestrial civilization, and a geopolitical competition for the Moon's natural resources may begin in the 21st century," said a report on a potential lunar program prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Roscosmos space agency and Moscow State University. The program aims to build an inhabited moon base and testing ground by the middle of the century, which would allow mineral extraction on Earth's only natural satellite. The project calls on developing a range of long-distance space technology to ensure the country can explore the moon independently from foreign partners. Earlier proposals for lunar exploration focused on strong international cooperation, as it was believed no single country could afford interplanetary projects on its own. Russia will plan separate three- or four-year-long lunar projects for the next 16 years, according to the plan. The first four will take place between 2016 and 2025 and will focus on defining the physical and chemical composition of the moons south pole, where the future base will be sited. Space roundtrips are scheduled for 2028-30, and manned lunar exploration for 2030-40. The first stage will cost the government 28.5 billion roubles ($ 800 million), Izvestia said. Previous lunar expeditions, which started with the USSR's Luna program in 1959 and the US landing the first man on the Moon 10 years later, discovered aluminum, iron, titanium, rare earths and other minerals.

Russia to Begin Moon Colonization in 2030 – Report | Russia | RIA Novosti
 

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