Domestic cosmonauts should be trained not for work on the ISS, but for expeditions to the Moon and Mars. This is the opinion of Boris Kryuchkov, deputy head of the Cosmonautics Training Center (CPC) for scientific work. According to him, the system of selection and training of cosmonauts existing in Russia today is not able to ensure the proper level of development of manned astronautics. The main tasks of the development of Russian manned astronautics until 2020 are experiments and research carried out on the domestic segment of the ISS, as well as the development of a new transport and technical support system based on a new generation manned spacecraft.
At the same time, our country must effectively master the near-Earth space and implement a program for the development of a natural satellite of the Earth and develop basic technologies for preparing a manned flight to Mars and other planets of our solar system. It is obvious that the development of Russian manned cosmonautics in this direction cannot be full-fledged without changing the existing system of training and selection of cosmonauts in the Russian Federation, since it imposes new requirements on the tasks, the technical means used and the conditions for conducting training and selection.
The development of manned astronautics should be carried out precisely in the spirit of the long-term tasks facing us. One of the main elements of the development and modernization of the CPC should be the creation of a modern scientific and technical complex for the training of cosmonauts, as well as the creation of the necessary infrastructure, the organization and implementation of experimental design and research work for the development of manned flights. Also, the training of qualified personnel of the CPC itself will be of great importance, Boris Kryuchkov believes.
The prospects for the development of Russian cosmonautics were the subject of a meeting between Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the development of the defense industry complex, and the leadership of Roscosmos, held on September 23, 2014. After our country decided to resume the program aimed at the exploration of the Moon, the Russian authorities decided on the beginning of its active phase. According to Oleg Ostapenko, head of Roscosmos, full-scale exploration of the Moon by Russia will begin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In general, the government is ready to provide 321 billion rubles for space exploration by 2025, said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
In the formalized form, according to Ostapenko, a new draft of the Russian Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 will soon be agreed with the government. According to him, the program has almost completely completed the approval process. He told reporters about this at a meeting at the Cosmonaut Training Center. The new Russian program envisages, in particular, the development of a super-heavy-class launch vehicle, the active exploration of a natural satellite of the Earth, the creation of a robot-cosmonaut that will assist the ISS crew during spacewalks.
According to RIA Novosti, a part of this amount will be used to develop new modules for the ISS, as well as to develop a new Russian automatic spacecraft called OKA-T. OKA-T is an autonomous technological module, a planned multipurpose space laboratory, which will be part of the Russian segment of the ISS. In this case, the module will be able to operate in space separately from the station. From time to time, it will dock with the ISS, the crew of which will take over the functions of refueling, servicing the scientific equipment on board and other operations.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the OKA-T apparatus is designed to solve scientific problems in a blue vacuum. At this point in time, all space experiments on board the ISS are carried out in accordance with the long-term Russian program of scientific and applied research. These experiments include studies of chemical and physical processes, as well as materials in the conditions of their presence in space. Also, as noted by Rogozin, studies of our planet from space, biotechnology, space biology, space exploration technologies are being implemented and planned. A lot has been planned and implemented, Rogozin noted, stressing that today the state allocates significant funds for space research.
Also at a meeting on the development of Russian cosmonautics, Rogozin raised the issue of the expediency of developing manned cosmonautics in terms of the International Space Station. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister drew attention to the current geopolitical situation, noting that the Russian Federation should be as pragmatic as possible in the current realities. Earlier, Dmitry Rogozin has already said that after 2020 Russia can focus its efforts on more promising space projects than the ISS, turning its attention to the creation of purely national projects.
A possible termination of international cooperation in the framework of the ISS project may occur between 2020 and 2028. The domestic space industry is preparing for such a development of the situation. RSC Energia has previously made a proposal to develop an independent Russian project of an orbital base located in low-earth orbit using three Russian modules from the ISS - two scientific and power modules and one nodal one. Such a base may be needed as part of the creation of a space port in orbit. Without the presence of such a port, it is difficult to think about the development of the solar system and the resources available in it. In the future, on such a basis, the process of assembling and servicing various interplanetary space complexes can be established. Someone will say that these are matters of the distant future, but RSC Energia specialists are simply obliged to look decades ahead in order to more accurately determine the vector of development of Russian cosmonautics.
In this regard, the OKA-T module ship, which is to appear as part of the ISS infrastructure in the near future, is acquiring great importance. This free-flying tech ship is planned to be sent into space at some distance from the station in 2018. OKA-T will become the prototype of the first industrial workshop located in the Earth's orbit. On board the ship, it is planned to carry out a variety of scientific research and obtain new materials (including drugs) with properties that are impossible to achieve on Earth. On the ISS itself, it is not possible to establish such production due to constant vibrations and the presence of microgravity. At the same time, the conditions for this will be ideal on the free-flying unmanned spacecraft-module "OKA-T". Once every 6 months, such a spacecraft will dock with the ISS for maintenance and loading / unloading of raw materials and finished products.
