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Putin slashes Russia’s space budget and says he expects better results:
Russia plans to slash funding for spaceflight activities during the coming three-year period, from 2022 to 2024. The cuts will come to about 16 percent annually, several Russian publications, including Finanz.ru, report. (These Russian-language articles were translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell.)
For 2022, the state budget for space activities will be set at 210 billion rubles ($2.9 billion), a cut of 40.3 billion rubles ($557 million) from the previous year. Similar cuts will follow in subsequent years. The most significant decreases will be in areas such as "manufacturing-technological activities" and "cosmodrome development." Funding for "scientific research and development" was zeroed out entirely.
[...] Putin has reportedly told the Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, that it must increase the reliability of Russian rockets and "master" the next generation of launch vehicles. This directive has come in response to growing competition in the global space launch business, particularly from US-based SpaceX.
I guess Russia is throwing in the towel as far as space is concerned?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @08:14PM (2 children)
Are the RD-180 engines reusable?
Then keep using them and All you need is to perfect landing a rocket with fold-out tripod legs.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday October 12 2021, @08:37PM (1 child)
If they are not designed to be reusable, then just how reusable can they actually be?
I wonder if chewing gum is reusable?
I saw some on the sidewalk! Research may be required.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 13 2021, @04:31PM
>If they are not designed to be reusable, then just how reusable can they actually be?
That's actually a very good question. Because they *are* designed to be extremely reliable, and reliability can potentially translate to at least limited reusability. Basically, the route to high reliability almost always amounts to ensuring that worst-case degradation during use still leaves a large margin before there's any risk of failure. And if there's enough safety margin, especially after refurbishing, it can potentially be harnessed for re-use, though probably with lower reliability.
That said, there's another big concern that the RD-180 is useless against: it's an RP-1 engine, and the writing is on the wall that orbital refueling is going to, at long last, soon become a reality. And for a number of reasons the infrastructure is going to be geared towards methalox (first among them, it's *far* easier to maintain a propellant depot where everything is at the same temperature - and at the temperatures where oxygen is liquid, RP-1 freezes solid, and hydrogen is still a gas). If Russia wants to compete in the coming generation of spaceflight, they need to either be compatible with the commercial orbital infrastructure the rest of the world is working towards, or be willing to tackle a more difficult challenge on their own.
Of course, none of that is relevant to first stage boosters that will never reach orbit - but it does simplify things immensely (a.k.a. make them a lot cheaper) if your first- and second-stage engines are basically the same. And methalox also has a huge advantage over RP-1 in that coking (buildup of soot, etc from incomplete combustion) is almost nonexistent, which greatly aids in reusability.
If I were in charge of renovating Russia's rocketry program I'd take a two-prong approach: Immediately begin working on landing using the existing engines (assuming they can be fired multiple times so that's even possible) to develop the flight control systems necessary. It doesn't do you any good to have a reusable engine if you destroy it trying to land, and Russia is notoriously bad at precision rocket control systems. And once working it opens the door to potentially getting limited re-use out of the existing engines, or at least being able to swap out new engines and save the cost of rebuilding the rest of the rocket. Not nearly as much of a benefit, but better than nothing.
Simultaneously I'd begin development of a reusable methalox engine to replace the existing ones. That's going to take years, and with any luck by the time it's ready they will have mastered booster recovery and can immediately start testing and improving the real-world reusability of the new engine.
Alternately I might go with a hydrolox engine. It wouldn't be be able to take advantage of the methalox infrastructure built for Starship, but would have an advantage for lunar and asteroid applications, where it would only need water and energy to produce fuel. Aiming to dominate a particular niche, especially such a profitable one, might be a better long-term strategy than being one of the competitors following SpaceX's lead. Then again, Blue Origin already has a heavily tested and reusable hydrogen engine for New Shepard, so there's already established competition for that niche as well.
And obviously I think it's safe to say that during this time other, more espionage-focused, government branches would be funneling in as much information as possible about the details of SpaceX's rocket and production technology - after all, learning from the technology leaders is a much faster way to catch up than trying to break all new ground yourself.