We have already written more than once that our space industry, led by "effective managers", continues its rapid deorbiting. And here is a new confirmation of this.
New - well forgotten old?
Production Association Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant named after Makarov”signed a contract with S7 Sea Launch Limited for the production and supply of Zenit series launch vehicles.
The press service of the enterprise reports that the contract was signed on April 28, 2017.
According to the contract, it is envisaged to manufacture 12 launch vehicles for use in the Sea Launch and Land Launch programs for research and the use of space for peaceful purposes within the framework of international space projects. Now in production there are 2 missiles of modifications Zenit-3SL and Zenit-3SLB.
The Ukrainian company expressed its deep gratitude to many foreign companies, but did not hide the fact that the counterparties are Russians. It is clear that in this regard, social networks are raging, and Ukrainian nationalists are threatening to block the supply of missiles.
S7 Sea Launch Limited is indeed a Russian company that was established in the fall of 2016, when the S7 group signed a contract with Sea Launch to purchase the Sea Launch rocket and space complex. The subject of the deal was the Sea Launch Commander, the Odyssey platform and ground equipment at the US port of Long Beach.
The Sea Launch project began operating in 1995. Its founders are the Boeing Corporation, the Russian RSC Energia, the Ukrainian design bureaus Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, and the Norwegian company Kvaerner. There were several commercial launches of Russian-Ukrainian Zenit launch vehicles from a floating platform, but in 2009 Sea Launch went bankrupt, with RSC Energia playing the leading role after the reorganization in the project.
The question arises: why, actually?
What is this: another stretching of the lifebuoy to Ukraine, or something more?
Zenit, a Soviet and later Ukrainian missile, was quite successful for its time and did not lose its effectiveness in the 21st century.
By and large, it was the cheapest rocket for launching into geostationary orbit, although it was inferior in power and reliability to the Proton. Zenit was launched 83 times between 1985 and 2015, and only 9 times were unsuccessful starts. The launches were carried out both from Baikonur and from the floating cosmodrome SeaLaunch.
The "heart" of "Zenith" was the Russian engine RD-170. Naturally, in the light of recent events at Zenit, it was possible to put a cross, final and irrevocable. However, we see a completely opposite situation.
Again the question: what about Angara, Proton, Soyuz?
And then there is complete sadness.
"Proton". In fact, for a year, since June 9, 2016, Proton-M has not been flying for all the known reasons, which seem to be working on, but it is not clear who and where.
Employees both left the enterprises and continue to do so. No longer in droves, there was a mass exodus last year. This applies primarily to all enterprises of the Khrunichev Center, in Moscow, Voronezh, Omsk.
The financial recovery program, developed and implemented by the team of “effective managers” A. V. Kalinovsky, who headed the enterprise in the summer of 2014, successfully finishes the personnel system of the TsiKh.
Production facilities in Moscow and Omsk are completely rebuilt. The main purpose of this restructuring is to reduce the areas occupied by the enterprise, with their subsequent sale for construction, both in Moscow and in Omsk. All this under the slogan of "lean manufacturing". In Voronezh, areas are not being cut, but there is simply nothing to be cut there.
A year of absence of Proton launches led to a quite natural result: the number of orders for launching satellites sharply decreased.
And that's okay. Customers want satellites in orbit, not tomorrow's stories. This is a serious industry after all.
With Proton, the situation is simply deplorable: its old production has collapsed, some parts and blanks are now being made in branches thousands of kilometers from Moscow. Quite often, branches cannot process a product entirely on their own equipment, and for some operations it has to be transported from Omsk or Ust-Katav to Moscow, and then back. This leads to a waste of time and money on transportation. Some of the workers from the plant in Moscow were laid off, some were transferred to a simple one for 2/3 of the salary.
These “effective” measures are proudly called “production reconfiguration and overhead reduction”.
At KB Salyut, which is engaged in design support of existing projects and the development of new ones, the situation is no better than at the plant.
Firstly, as a result of "developing a motivational model", a new remuneration system was introduced. Some of the bonuses for academic degrees and knowledge of a foreign language were canceled and the bonus was tied to the amount of work performed. When planning it, it was taken into account through standard hours, and in terms of work, it has long been torn away from the actual time costs, both upward and downward.
But the labor intensity standards were never revised, so some of the units ended up in chocolate, and some on starvation rations with a bare salary.
Of course, this led to the resignation of some specialists of their own free will, and by no means pensioners. It also sharply aggravated relations between the departments - no one wants to work for free. In Voronezh, at KBKhA, workers refused to go out overtime without pay.
But, despite the lack of knowledge and experience in the development of rocket and space technology, A. V. Kalinovsky and his team do not forget to generate new ideas in the field of rocketry.
This is about the Proton-Light project presented last year. Having over-optimized the "Angara" and practically stopped the production of the usual "Proton", the "effective" decided to disfigure it, giving rise to new versions, as if the rocket were a children's designer, and not a complex technical system.
Why Kalinovsky's company needed it is very difficult to say. Apparently, I really wanted to play "tough specialists". It took a year for reason to prevail and everyone understood that "Light" is nonsense.
"Proton" and so, in theory, fly only until 2025. Then everything, finish. And the current owners of the territory on which the Baikonur cosmodrome is located are not at all eager even for the money of Proton, which is poisoning everything around.
But on the other hand, new contracts are already being signed for Proton-Light, although the rocket itself is not yet there.
But there is a complete collapse and collapse of the "effective managers" of the Kalinovskiy State Research and Production Center named after Khrunichev. The restructuring of production and the development of new projects is carried out at the expense of borrowed funds. The amount of credits and loans hanging on the enterprise during the work of A. V. Kalinovsky managed to double and from 28 billion rubles increased to 52 billion rubles. And the territory of the Moscow site of the enterprise is used as collateral for the loan. There are also debts to suppliers, and they are comparable in size to debts to banks.
According to the balance sheet for 2016, the amount of claims against the company is already 9.5 billion rubles.
Nice start, proton style. Effective.
"Angara".
Huge sums have been invested in the development of the Angara and in the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome. In recent years, the media have repeatedly spoken about these projects. First in loud promises, then in victorious reports.
And then, as usual, in principle, scandals and investigations began.
A lot of things were thrown into the light, but the most sad thing is the fact that there was much more noise and screams than real achievements.
One "Angara" carried out an orbital launch two and a half years ago, one "Soyuz" flew from Vostochny a year ago.
And that is all. Hopefully for now.
There were rumors, however, so far only rumors that the Angara would not be entrusted with the new manned ship Federation, which was preparing to fly on it to the Moon.
In general, it is clear that the rocket should fly and the launch site should be launched. If both do not happen, then the matter is wrong. And both components smoothly pass into the category of "expensive toys" and "money down the drain."
The question of what the state billions were spent on is repeated many times in the media, in blogs, and in the comments. There are many questions, but no answers.
Let's take a look at the Angara line.
First, it was prepared for the Zenit launch pad, which was already at Baikonur and in Plesetsk. Then they began to design their own. Wings were attached to the side accelerators to make them reusable.
The concept of universal rocket modules is a promising topic that reduces the cost of production, and was subsequently implemented by a young American startup SpaceX.
In general, the story of "Angara" is an example of what can happen if you give developers an unlimited budget, unlimited time frames and say: "Create!" And they created a rocket with universal modules to save money, but with three different launching tables for each modification A3, A5, A7, which raises the cost of the entire complex to the skies.
The only thing that accompanied Angara throughout its entire life was its uselessness.
As a rocket, the Angara is not needed. And it was always unnecessary. "Angara" has always been used for any other purpose, except for the launch of spacecraft. For normal rocket operation, the existing missiles continued to be used: the capabilities of A1 are Dnepr, Rokot, Soyuz-U, A3 is Soyuz-2 and Zenit, A5 is Proton, A7 is loads of such no.
There are no commercial prospects either - the rocket is twice as expensive as the Proton.
The first orbital heavy launch of "Angara" was unique in the history of Russian cosmonautics - it was launched two days ahead of schedule. After many years of postponement, but two days earlier than the announced date. Exactly on the day when the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, paid a state visit to Russia.
So the first (and at the moment, the last) launch of "Angara" was not space, but political.
Kazakhstan (and the entire space world) was given to understand that there is no pressure on the "Proton", there is where to establish "your own bar" with all the components.
The essence of "Baikonur": launching tables "Proton" and manned tables "Soyuz". But while the United States depends on the "Union" on this missile, Kazakhstan will never dare to encroach, but the "Proton" is still a poison, and not in the literal sense. Although in the direct too.
"Proton" pulled from a third to a half of all commercial cosmonautics in the world, and each launch brought a little less money to the cashier of Russia than Kazakhstan receives for renting a cosmodrome per year.
There was something to "start" from.
Now the "Angara" actually has only one launch pad. In Plesetsk. Created with funds from the Ministry of Defense in order to ensure Russia's access to space from its territory. But Plesetsk is the worst cosmodrome for launches into geostationary orbit - too much fuel is spent on changing the inclination of the orbit.
On Vostochny, it was planned to build two launch sites for Angara A5 - one "cargo", the second - manned. In this configuration and with the modification to the "Angara A5B", it became possible to deliver the Russians to the "Federation" to the lunar orbit with two launches. For this potential opportunity "Roskosmos" steadfastly held on at the moments of the most severe sequestration of the space budget. For the media, the formula was repeated about "ensuring the possibility of reaching the moon until 2030."
I wanted to believe. Even despite the chaos with defective engines, garbage in the fuel lines, inappropriate solder, I wanted to. It would still be great to see our flight to the moon …
But there is no money for two tables under the "Angara", which means there is no flight to the Moon, and there are no manned launches.
Point. Until "Angara" will fly nowhere.
And now information on Zenit. But there is a silver lining here.
The revival of SeaLaunch under the auspices of the S7 company prompted Roscosmos to work on the Russian rocket on the RD-170. The results of RSC Energia's work on the Rus rocket were taken as a basis.
This is how the Phoenix project was born. Kazakhstan gave money for this work, and a variant called "Sunkar" (Sokol) is being worked out for it. This rocket can be launched from Zenit launch pads, saving significant funds.
Quite recently, the head of Energia spoke about the possibility of placing the Federation spacecraft on the Phoenix, and today this is the only possible option.
But the "Phoenix" is weaker than the "Angara", so so far no Moon is shining for our cosmonauts.
In the future, Phoenix-5 can be assembled from five rockets, and this will already be a superheavy lunar rocket. The modular concept of the "Angara" is being repeated, with the difference that each module is an independent rocket. There are differences from Angara.
About the same, the Americans developed their "Falcon-9". Whether it is easy to assemble three or five from one rocket is clearly seen in the example of the triple Falcon Heavy - the launch was promised in 2014, in the yard in 2017 and is promised by the fall. Here is the same rake, in general.
It turns out, on the one hand, complete nonsense: with the Angara ready in theory, start building a new rocket. And where is the guarantee that the Phoenix will take off?
Of course, no one can give guarantees, but there are several nuances.
If Phoenix succeeds at the price of Zenit, it will be three times cheaper than Angara A5. Launch capabilities are comparable when launched from the equator at SeaLaunch. Too many ifs, but alas, there are.
"Phoenix" is not developed by GKNPTs them. Khrunichev, breathing heavily, and RSC Energia, which has established itself as a quality manufacturer of Soyuz spacecraft and other equipment. Energia was much less likely to be included in reports of corruption scandals. This is kind of reassuring.
Since Phoenix is tailored to the launching tables for Zenit, there are no problems with them. Baikonur or SeaLaunch near the equator.
There are private customers at Phoenix, that is, investors. That means money. The same S7 is already ready to buy and start up.
So "Phoenix" is quite capable of replacing "Proton", if it takes place and will be cheaper than "Proton".
But when it will be - again a question.
We get at the output: minus "Proton", minus "Angara" … plus "Zenith".
But "Zenith" is in the black only if there are still personnel in Ukraine who can make a rocket. And this is also a question.
