Russian nongovernmental companies can build everything from a sensor to a rocket
Russian private space has not yet gone as far in its development as the American one, but nevertheless it is actively developing. Domestic entrepreneurs are successfully manufacturing individual subsystems, and in just five years they promise to launch a suborbital tourist shuttle (Kosmokurs), a private rocket (Lin Industrial), and provide the entire planet with the Internet (Yaliny).
Russia moved to a market economy in 1992. State-owned enterprises went into private ownership, the first individual entrepreneurs appeared, but these turbulent processes almost did not affect the space industry. Only a few enterprises (for example, RSC Energia) changed over to the form of an open joint stock company, and most of the shares remained under state control.
The private initiative manifested itself in the creation of companies by small groups of enthusiasts that could carry out small orders for the space giants.
The first steps
A typical example is ZAO NPO Lepton and its general director Oleg Kazantsev. The company started in the 90s as a manufacturer of video cameras, but then discovered that its experience allowed for the manufacture of star sensors for spacecraft, which it is now successfully doing. Is it worth mentioning the Engineering and Technology Center as well? ScanEx is a company founded in 1989 that collects, processes and sells images from space satellites.
A noteworthy initiative of those years was the participation of a group of Russian space engineers in the international competition for solar sailing ships. Back in the 80s, they prepared a project for a spacecraft with a solar sail, and in the 90s, to commercialize the technology, they founded the Space Regatta Consortium, offering, among other things, Russian gas workers to illuminate the northern territories using a space mirror made on the basis of “sailing” technologies. The gas workers were not interested in the mirror, but they needed communication satellites. As a result, part of the Space Regatta team headed by Nikolai Sevastyanov (then an ordinary specialist at RSC Energia) took up communication satellites, later becoming Gazprom Space Systems, whose general designer is Mr. Sevastyanov.
The Skolkovo era
In the 2000s, when the Russian economy was reviving and private space was actively developing in the West, Western space startups began to come to our country. First, MirCorp tried to organize the first tourist flight to the Mir station. But Space Adventures managed to send the first space tourist (already to the ISS). The head of its Russian branch, Sergei Kostenko, later organized the Suborbital Corporation, which participated in the Ansari X PRIZE competition. Suborbital Corporation together with the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after MV Myasishcheva created a project and built a model of a tourist shuttle (life-size), which was supposed to take off from an M-55 Geofizika high-altitude aircraft and take tourists to an altitude of about 100 kilometers. The project did not find funding and was closed. In 2010, the same Sergei Kostenko created Orbital Technologies, which, together with RSC Energia, developed a commercial orbital station. This project also did not receive development.
In the same years, ZAO Aviacosmicheskie sistemy (AKS) appeared. Its founder, Oleg Aleksandrov, in 2004 promised to organize a flight to Mars and sell the rights to broadcast the life of the crew. But already in 2005, the firm focused on a more realistic project - satellites with advertising slogans. ZAO AKS received a license from Roscosmos, manufactured two satellites - AKS-1 and AKS-2, but then closed without launching them.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, things went more successfully for Russian space startups. In 2009, the Selenokhod company under the leadership of Nikolai Dzis-Voinarovsky decided to take part in the international Google Lunar X PRIZE competition to create a private lunar rover. The founders of Selenokhod invested their own funds in the project and started development. In 2011, a space cluster appeared in the Skolkovo Innovation Fund. Cluster resident status gave companies tax incentives and the prospect of receiving grants from the foundation. Selenokhod became one of the first residents, but did not find funding for the lunar rover project, withdrew from the competition and then, under the name Sensepace, began to create rendezvous and docking systems for small spacecraft. RoboCV, a subsidiary of Selenokhod, has applied computer vision technology proposed to build robots that deliver goods to warehouses. RoboCV is now a successful venture-backed firm with Samsung among its clients.
At the same time, really big money came to the private sector of Russian space. The Sputniks company received several tens of millions of rubles, for which it was able to assemble and launch in 2014 the first completely Russian private satellite Tablettsat-Aurora (devices manufactured by JSC Gazprom Space Systems and RSC Energia cannot be called such, since among shareholders are the state). The ex-owner of Technosila, Mikhail Kokorich, who has made a fortune in retail, founded the Dauria satellite manufacturing company in 2012, with investments exceeding $ 30 million. In 2014, Dauria launched two nanosatellites of the Perseus-M series and one microsatellite DX-1, on which the AIS system for monitoring the movement of sea vessels was installed.
After the creation of the Skolkovo space cluster, it turned out that there are more than a dozen space startups in Russia. And besides numerous companies developing separate subsystems (such as, say, Spectralazer, which develops laser ignition for a rocket engine), there are also truly ambitious projects. For example, the company "Kosmokurs", a former employee of the Khrunichev Center and the developer of the "Angara" rocket Pavel Pushkin, is building a ship for suborbital tourism with the money of a large Russian industrial investor.
Will Russian SpaceX take place?
Another large-scale Skolkovo project is being implemented by the private company Lin Industrial, founded by entrepreneur Alexei Kaltushkin and Alexander Ilyin (co-owner and general designer who previously worked at the Khrunichev Center and Selenokhod). The company is designing ultralight rockets that can launch satellites weighing up to 180 kilograms into orbit. Lin Industrial managed to attract investments from big business: the creators of the computer game World of Tanks invested in it.
Recall that the flagship of the world's private space SpaceX also began with the creation of a small rocket. The carrying capacity of the Falcon 1 carrier into low-earth orbit was theoretically 670 kilograms, but in real flights the payload mass did not exceed 180 kilograms.
The relevance of the development of an ultralight rocket is dictated by the following. At present, small small satellites can only be launched by a large rocket together with a corresponding satellite or with a sufficient number of the same "babies". That is, customers have to wait, either when a large satellite is ready, or so that there are enough small satellites for a whole rocket. Moreover, if the customer needs a specific orbit, the waiting for a suitable "ride" is even more delayed. As a result, one or two years may pass before launching into orbit.
Such launches can be compared to a trip by bus or minibus. Sending a satellite to the Taimyr launch vehicle in this case is a taxi. A nano- (weighing 1-10 kg) or microsatellite (10-100 kg) is delivered to the desired orbit individually and with a guarantee of high efficiency - no more than three months before launch.
Already in 2015, the company plans to test a liquid propellant rocket engine. In July, it successfully launched a 1.6-meter prototype rocket to test the control system of the future Taimyr.
The first flight of the Taimyr is scheduled for 2020.
In the future, it will become the ancestor of a whole family of rockets of different payloads, which will help meet all the needs of manufacturers of small spacecraft:
- "Taimyr-1A" - a monoblock three-stage launch vehicle with a launch weight of about 2,600 kilograms, which will be able to launch a payload (PL) weighing up to 11 kilograms into low-earth orbit;
- "Taimyr-1B" - is similar in design and characteristics, but outputs up to 13 kilograms, and at its first stage, instead of nine engines with a thrust of 400 kilograms each costs one large one with a thrust of 3.5 tons, which will ensure the efficiency of commercial operation;
- "Taimyr-5" - a three-stage rocket of a batch scheme (four side blocks) for launching a launch vehicle up to 100 kilograms into space;
- "Taimyr-7" - a three-stage rocket of a batch scheme (six side blocks) for launching a launch vehicle up to 180 kilograms into space.
The main question is whether there is work for all these missiles?
Lin Industrial believes that the market not only exists, but is growing. All over the world there is a development of mini- (100-500 kg), micro- (10-100 kg) and nanosatellite (1-10 kg) platforms. At the same time, both private and state companies and educational institutions are involved in the creation of apparatus of such classes.
According to the forecast of the agency O2Consulting, the number of spacecraft launched into space weighing up to 500 kilograms will grow from 154 in 2014 to 195 in 2020. Analyst firm Spaceworks makes even more optimistic conclusions, predicting the launch of 543 vehicles weighing 1-50 kilograms in 2020.
Thus, Russia is moving in line with global trends.
Private firms "Dauria" and "Sputniks" create micro- and nanosatellites. Sputniks launched the first Russian private satellite Tablettsat-Aurora (26 kg), Dauria - two Perseus-M series devices (5 kg each) and one DX-1 (15 kg), JSC Russian Space Systems for technology development was sent into space TNS-0 No. 1 (5 kg).
Universities are not lagging behind either. Several satellites of the Mozhaisky Academy are operating in orbit. The last - "Mozhaets-5" weighed 73 kilograms. Moscow State University launched Tatiana-1 (32 kg) and Tatiana-2 (90 kg), Ufa State Aviation Technical University - USATU-SAT (40 kg), MAI - MAK-1 and MAK-2 (20 kg each), and also, together with the Southwestern State University, participated in the creation of devices of the "Radioscap" series (up to 100 kg).
Most likely, the number of nano- and microsatellites created in Russia will continue to grow, and at an accelerated pace. Among the promising projects of private companies (in addition to ongoing work in universities on the next "Radioscaps", "Baumanets-2", etc.), the following can be noted:
scientific experiment "Cluster-T" for registration of gamma-ray bursts of space and terrestrial origin ("Dauria" + IKI RAS) - 3-4 microsatellites;
microsatellite constellation for monitoring emergency situations ("Sputniks" and "Scanex" for EMERCOM of Russia) - 18 microsatellites;
all-planetary cheap Internet Yaliny - 135 microsatellites + 9 reserve.
Attraction of the moon
If the American SpaceX plans to colonize Mars in the distant future, then in the Russian "Lin Industrial" they are sure that it is necessary to start large-scale space exploration from the Moon.
Lin Industrial has developed a plan to create a lunar base for the first phase for two crew members and the second - for four people. According to preliminary estimates, the cost of the project called "Moon Seven" will amount to 550 billion rubles, while Roskosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences are asking to allocate two trillion rubles from the budget until 2025 for research and development of our natural satellite.
The highlight of the project is the use of existing rocket and space technology and facilities, the creation of which is possible in the next five years. The modernized heavy "Angara-A5" is proposed as a carrier. This will make it possible to abandon the time-consuming and expensive development and construction of a super-heavy launch vehicle.
The manned spacecraft is planned to be made on the basis of the hulls of the descent vehicle and the utility compartment, which are now used to deliver cosmonauts to the International Space Station by the Soyuz spacecraft. The lunar landing module can be made on the basis of the Fregat upper stage.
To launch to the Moon and build a base on its surface, it is necessary to carry out 13 launches of heavy carrier rockets. In total, 37 launches are needed to maintain the life of the base within five years.
The place for the deployment of the first lunar settlement is Mount Malapert, located in the region of the south pole of the Moon. It is a fairly flat plateau with a direct line of sight to the Earth, which creates good conditions for communication and is convenient for landing. The mountain is almost constantly illuminated by the Sun, and the duration of the night, which occurs only a few times a year, does not exceed three to six days. In addition, there are shaded craters nearby, where deposits of water ice under a layer of lunar soil are likely.
The project implementation period is ten years from the beginning of the decision, five of which will be spent on the deployment of the base and the work of the crews.
"Moon Seven" is not only a dream of private traders. Some of the proposals related to this project were included in the Federal Space Program (FKP) for 2016–2025, approved in the spring. In particular, the FKP announced the refusal to build a super-heavy rocket in the near future, but the direction for the exploration of the Moon was retained and the modernization of the Angara-A5 was added.
As for promising space undertakings that are not related to Skolkovo or state-owned enterprises, four of them are worth highlighting.
Firstly, the amateur group “Multipurpose Rocket Platforms” developed and tested in 2012 a hybrid rocket engine (GRD) with a thrust of about 20 kilograms and a rocket with it. In the same year, the "hybrid" was tested with a thrust of 500 kilograms. This is a tremendous achievement, if we remember that the world's first hybrid engine was built in the Soviet Union, while the last time rockets on a GRD in our country flew in 1934. The only functioning GRD in Russia (except for the "Multipurpose Rocket Platforms") is owned by the state Keldysh Center. At the same time, in the USA, the GRD is the basis of many private projects. So, the famous American private suborbital shuttle SpaceShip One flew exactly on the GRD. Unfortunately, Multipurpose Reactive Platforms, predicting insufficient demand for their products and not receiving support from Skolkovo and investors, eventually redesigned to manufacture composite structures.
Secondly, Alexander Galitsky, a well-known Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist, chose not to invest in domestic space projects, but to make a sponsorship contribution to a private non-profit fund B612 headquartered in the United States, which is engaged in protecting the Earth from asteroids.
Thirdly, a group of enthusiasts called "Your Space Sector", led by MAMI teacher Alexander Shaenko (Ph. D., formerly a leading engineer of Dauria), is creating the Mayak satellite. It should deploy an inflatable metallized reflector in orbit in the fall of 2016 and become the brightest object in the night sky for several months. Your Space Sector is collecting donations to pay for the launch of the Dnepr rocket.
Fourth, entrepreneurs Vadim Teplyakov and Nikita Sherman opened the Yaliny company in Hong Kong, the team of which consists mainly of Russian specialists. The initial investment was about $ 2 million. Yaliny intends to provide the Earth with a planetary satellite Internet, that is, to compete with a similar project OneWeb by Richard Branson and the global Internet from Google / Fidelity / SpaceX.
