On the eve of Cosmonautics Day, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the national space program, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta outlined a new concept for the study and exploration of space. The basis of the thesis of the voiced concept is the transition from romance to pragmatism, the introduction of strict economic criteria into the work of all Russian enterprises in the space sector and industry programs. At the same time, Dmitry Rogozin outlined three main strategic tasks facing Roscosmos: expanding its presence in low-earth orbits and moving from their development to active use; development and subsequent colonization of the natural satellite - the Moon, as well as the space around the moon; preparation of work and the beginning of the development of Mars and other objects of our solar system.
An open competition for the development of a concept for the development of space activities in Russia by the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) was announced last year. The initial cost of the contract was 883 million rubles, works for the competition were accepted from December 27, 2013 to February 4, 2014. The results of the competition were to be announced by February 13th. The announced competition indicated that the conceptual documents were to be created on the basis of the "Basic systemic studies of the problems of studying and exploration of outer space in Russia and abroad for the period up to 2030", which were carried out under the previous state contract, which was held under the code " Highway "(" Strategy "). In turn, the new Russian concept of space development was named "Strategy-2".
The concept presented by Rogozin is divided into three major sections. The first is the efficient economic development of low Earth orbits. We are talking about the development and commercial application of Earth remote sensing (ERS), communication services. These tasks include providing television, Internet, radio and telephone communications to residents of remote areas of our country. Great importance is given to hydrometeorology, geological prospecting, cartography, emergency detection and monitoring, information support of economic activities, environmental conditions, forecasting earthquakes and other destructive natural phenomena.
To meet the above needs, Russia should create its own updated ERS system, which should include high-resolution imagery spacecraft, meteorological and geophysical satellites, and emergency monitoring satellites. The minimum orbital grouping of such vehicles required for our country is 28 units. At present, Russia has the necessary groundwork for deploying a grouping of such a size in space. This can be done within the next 7-10 years. This task will have to be solved within the framework of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025, which is currently being created.
The second stage of the program boils down to the landing of Russian cosmonauts on the moon in 2030, from this year the colonization of this celestial body will have to begin. According to Rogozin, Russia expects to come to the moon forever, in the next 50 years, mankind will be able to send its manned spacecraft no further than Mars or Venus, which means thatand all tasks should be formulated within this limited space. Here you have to make a choice: the Moon, Mars or work on the study of the asteroid belt, since Russia will not pull all directions at once. Currently, the choice has been made in favor of the Moon. Gradually, test sites will be deployed on the lunar surface for accumulating and transmitting energy over a distance, testing new engines. According to Dmitry Rogozin, the exploration of the moon should resemble the development of a new continent by humans.
Currently, according to many scientists, the Moon is still an important object for fundamental scientific research. The origin of the natural satellite of the Earth can in many ways shed light on the most important and complex issues of cosmogony: the birth of our solar system, the process of its development and the future. On the moon, people can expect very important discoveries. In addition, the Moon is the closest to our planet and is still the only source of extraterrestrial matter, minerals, minerals, various volatile compounds, and water available to man. It is a natural platform that can be used to test new space technology and technology research.
Today, many countries in the world share the need to explore the moon. These views are shared by a united Europe, Japan, India and China. If we talk about the United States, then they are currently at a crossroads. 40 years ago, the United States implemented a large-scale program of expeditions to the moon under the Apollo program, and the "return" thesis sounds less vivid than the "development" thesis.
According to Dmitry Rogozin, Russia does not position the mission of flights to the moon as a task limited in resources and time. In our strategy, the Moon is not an intermediate goal, but an independent and completely self-sufficient one. It hardly makes sense to make 10-20 flights to the Moon, in order to then, leaving everything, fly to asteroids or Mars. This process can have a beginning, but there can be no end, Russia must come to the moon forever.
At the third stage, Roskosmos expects to use our natural satellite as a platform for more distant space travel - to the asteroid belt and Mars, where research programs will dominate at the first stage. In addition, flights to Mars or to asteroids not only in no way contradict Russia's exploration of the Moon, but also largely imply this process.
To fulfill the set goals, it is necessary to provide Russia with guaranteed access to space from the territory of our country, which means a gradual relocation of space launches of dual and defense purposes from the Baikonur cosmodrome, located in Kazakhstan, to the Plesetsk and Vostochny cosmodromes. At the same time, Russia is not going to leave Baikonur. The launch sites of the legendary Soviet cosmodrome will not be idle. They are planned to be used within the framework of various international programs and with more active participation from Kazakhstan.
Construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome
At the same time, it is worth thinking about what to fly into space on. While concrete is pouring into the base of the launch pad of the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East, Russian enterprises of the rocket and space industry are finishing work on the creation of promising space launch vehicles of various classes: light, medium and heavy based on the Soyuz-2 and Angara missile systems. . At the same time, work is underway to determine the technical appearance of the manned complex, which is planned to be created on the basis of a super-heavy rocket for flights to the Moon, and in the future to the Red Planet. In addition, work is underway in Russia to create powerful interorbital (interplanetary) tugs, without which the development of the Moon and the planets of our solar system is hardly feasible.
At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister also outlined the "Achilles' heel" of our cosmonautics. According to him, this is the manufacture of high-quality electronics. The airborne relay systems for Russian communication satellites created in recent years are either completely produced by foreign companies or created in Russia, but on the basis of foreign components. At the same time, up to 90% of all equipment of any spacecraft consists of electronics.
At the same time, Russia is gradually losing its leadership in the field of creating new spaceships and engines. For example, on January 12, 2014, the American unmanned spacecraft Cygnus docked to the ISS. Its total carrying capacity is 2.7 tons, while the Russian Progress-M is able to lift a little more than 2 tons of cargo into orbit. At the same time, the Cygnus ship, like the Antares launch vehicle, was developed by a private company from the United States - Orbital Sciences Corporation, which employs about 4 thousand employees. Also in 2013, another American cargo ship, Dragon, developed by SpaceX, flew to the ISS for the third time. This spacecraft is capable of delivering up to 6 tons of cargo into orbit.
At the same time, the operation of Russian missiles and ships is already more expensive than foreign competitors, including China. Russian transport and manned spacecraft Progress and Soyuz are veterans of cosmonautics. At the same time, SpaceX, which was founded in 2002 and is the developer of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon launch vehicles, employs only 3,800 employees, which is 12 times less than in the G. M. V. Khrunichev.
Expert opinions
After the publication of the concept for the development of Russian cosmonautics, which was presented by Rogozin in the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", the resource "Svobodnaya Pressa" asked to comment on the program statements of the Deputy Prime Minister of people close to space exploration. Among them are cosmonaut Georgy Grechko and Yuri Kubarev, vice-president of the Prokhorov Academy of Engineering Sciences of the Russian Federation, who began his career in the industry at the dawn of the space age.
According to Grechko, Mars can be studied "for the soul", there is prestige, discoveries, great science. It's a kind of romance. Of course, this can only be an international expedition, no one on Earth will be able to pull such a flight alone for many years to come. At the same time, for applied matters, we are much more interested in near space. With each technological advance, there is less admiration, but more value. In recent years, geological exploration and the launch of new fields have decreased tenfold, thanks to accurate navigation and thanks to forecasts coming from satellites, ships in the sea have become 2 times less likely to die at sea in recent decades. In this area, there has become much less sensation, but significantly more benefits, which are not so noticeable for the broad masses.
At the same time, near space can help in solving many fundamental security problems of all mankind. For example, issues of predicting earthquakes, powerful solar flares, detecting asteroids and dealing with those of them that may pose a danger to the Earth. It is also necessary to remove space debris that has accumulated in orbit over the past decades, which is very dangerous. In this context, we don't need the Moon. Only a project for the extraction of helium-3 on a natural satellite, as well as the further production of electricity from it on Earth at specially built thermonuclear power plants, can be called promising. However, the development of such stations has been going on since the 50s of the last century, but not one has yet been built. Without these stations, the extraction of helium-3 is a pointless exercise. According to Georgy Grechko, he does not see any reasonable idea for the exploration of the Moon. According to him, Roskosmos could have swung at this project, realizing that it would not be enough for more.
Yuri Kubarev believes that the main problem in the development of the space industry in our country is secrecy in decision-making. There is no nationwide work in the country that would unite the most diverse opposing groups of Russian scientists, which was previously typical for the USSR (Gagarin's flight into space), for the United States (the national program for the training of Kennedy astronauts) and today's China.
All this, to one degree or another, affects the solution of the three different problems that exist today, which the Russian Federal Space Agency is facing. The first concerns the small number of qualified personnel. For the most part, these are already people in old age who do not see a change. It is precisely because of the secrecy inherent in Roskosmos that many experienced personnel are simply not involved in the work, since their ideas do not fit into the projects of the dominant groups. For this reason, the staff shortage will only get tougher. The second problem is related to the first one - it is the problem of financing. Funding is limited, and this is understandable, our country has not endless financial possibilities. Much worse is the fact that today funds are sometimes spent on dead-end projects that were adopted under the conditions of monopoly views. Most of all, this is manifested in the third technological problem, which directly relates to the question of what, in fact, will we fly further? In Russia, in fact, no work is underway on the creation of ships of the future and promising engines.
At the same time, Yuri Kubarev believes that due to technological and financial problems, mankind needs to work on an international flight program to Mars. According to him, the Moon is no longer interesting either from the point of view of politics and prestige, or from the point of view of geology. It's just that Roskosmos, with the available ships and engines, cannot count on anything else, hence the choice. Yuri Kubarev noted that he himself is not a geologist, but the opinions that he had heard from the best specialists in this field indicate that there is nothing to do on the Moon. Moreover, 10 years ago, Mars was one of the main priorities for Roscosmos! But only then did the realization of their own capabilities come …
