Our main, most far-advanced project in the field of space carriers - "Angara" - turns out to be a failure ?! In vain, wrong, to be closed?
So one might have thought after reading an article that appeared on December 19 in Izvestia with the title "Oleg Ostapenko considers the main space project of Russia in recent decades to be a dead-end solution." Notice, even without a question mark - definitely.
That's funny…
Oleg Ostapenko is the current head of Roscosmos, so this is not huhry. And if you look at what the cursor gives out when you hover over the page address (I don't remember what it is called correctly - what is written on the header of the browser tab). So, it says there “The head of Roscosmos is ready to abandon the“Angara”- that is, well, not at all huhry.
Here is what he said (I quote from Izvestia):
“I have been dealing with Angara for a long time, since the beginning of my activity as the head of the cosmodrome, then the commander,” said Ostapenko at the meeting. - Personally, I am convinced that this rocket for Vostochny is a dead-end rocket, it will not give us the opportunity to develop. We will then have to invest a lot of money again and build something else next to it … I believe that Angara is a dead-end solution for the further development of our country in this area."
Let's see why it turned out so suddenly. What such shortcomings did Ostapenko find in Angara, which at once made it a dead end?
I have no other information about this, apart from an article in Izvestia; here we will study it.
I have subtracted two claims in the article.
Too long
The first is the development time. From Izvestia:
"The first start of the" Angara "light class was planned for 2007, was postponed several times and is now in the plans for mid-2014".
20 years … sounds terrible.
But the reason is clear! I already wrote about this in an old blog (https://bwana.ru/?p=494):
“… One of the contestants, Khrunichev's Angara rocket, has been under development since the mid-1990s. I confirm that I myself was a little involved. Nobody wants to ask: why hasn't it been developed? This is my first question, and I can roughly imagine the answer - as you understand, because I participated. The work went in fits and starts: the general contractor charges us money, and there comes a "aggravation", then he does not charge, and then the chief designer curtails the work, puts people on other tasks - there is an eternal shortage of people when there is such "impulse" financing. Since the late 1990s, as I recall, I have experienced three such cycles. And, mind you, every time most of the people with the next exacerbation turns out to be new, because the old ones are already tightly drawn into something else, and they put those who, in principle, by qualifications, can, and at the same time, are not busy above the roof."
From the very beginning, Angara had a powerful, fierce opposition, and this affected the financing: it was stopped and then renewed. It is also appropriate to recall the scarcity of the state budget and the organizational confusion of those years. Recall that if huge firms, general contractors, suffered from a lack of funds, then lower-level cooperation enterprises, smaller ones, generally simply writhed, others and with a fatal outcome …
But, in general, they did not find fault with the timing. Probably, they also understand. The main complaint is cost indicators. From Izvestia:
"Since 1994, more than 100 billion rubles have been spent on its (the Angara project) implementation."
First, the figure itself does not say anything definite. 100 billion rubles, or less than 3 billion dollars - for space programs this can be a lot and a little, depending on what was done for this money. Look, when the amersky experts considered that the implementation of the lunar program "Constellation" (launch vehicles "Ares-1" and "Ares-5", manned spacecraft "Orion", lunar lander module "Altair") needed more than $ 100 billion - this 10 years ago, when the dollar was "heavier" today.
So the amount is less than $ 3 billion - maybe not that catastrophic.
Secondly, I have already said: if it were not for the delays, the devastation in the industry and all that stuff, then the costs would have been less. In addition, I would like to draw your attention to the following: what have others done during this time?
Where are they, all these "Omegas", "Yamals", "Soyuz-2" and -3? I do not mean that Soyuz-2, the former Rus, which is now injecting 7-8 tons into low-earth orbits, but those “deep upgrades” that the 14-ton Clipper was supposed to launch? Where are they? Where is the Clipper itself? How much money is spent on these non-ending endeavors?
Where, by the way, is another "Rus", a new one called "Rus-M", which won the competition announced in 2009 to create a rocket for the national lunar program?
Here it is, look:
Beautiful? The largest option is 50 tons of payload. This project was closed by Popovkin in 2011 …
As for Angara, in November, a fully functional mock-up of a light version of the rocket was taken to the launch site, and bench firing tests have been carried out for quite some time. And already three times the Korean KSLV-1 launch vehicle has flown into space, repeating the URM "Angara" by 80% …
So the first "Angara", you see, will really take off next year - which, by the way, is about to come.
Probably spent for almost 20 years, you can leave alone. Moreover, they are not the only, in fact, detailed reason for the "resignation" of "Angara". And it is the cost of the rocket itself.
Too expensive
I will not literally quote a certain high-ranking participant in the meeting at the head of Roscosmos. He says that only one set of engines for the 1st stage of the heavy "Angara" costs the same as the "Protons" flying this year - 1.25 billion rubles; however, there is a note right there that for next year's launches, Protons are being bought for 1.5 billion rubles.
That is, he says, the cost of the whole rocket will exceed 2.5 billion, plus at least 1 billion for the booster, fairing and launch services. And it turns out that in today's prices, the cost of launching a heavy "Angara" probably goes beyond $ 100 million.
Well, yes, more expensive than Proton. But it's not for nothing that they want to replace him? Is there something in it that does not suit you, is there something that Angara will be better? And for "better" - shouldn't you pay?
And then, what are we talking about? About how much you have to pay for "Angara" now and in the coming years? But now only pilot production is underway, while the series is usually much cheaper. A certain, again, a high-ranking representative, but this time GKNPTs im. Khrunicheva says in the same Izvestia: yes, today the Angara costs almost twice as much as the Proton. But we plan to reduce the cost of the rocket by 1, 8 times by 2020. And in the series - so generally in 2, 5 times.
And he also recalls that the first "Protons" were three times more expensive than the serial ones, and the first "Soyuz" - three and a half …
True, those $ 100 million for the launch, which are given above, are estimates of third parties, and not the manufacturer's data; "Khrunichev" shies away from statements on the part of value. $ 100 million should be understood as the lower limit and therefore in no case should we hope that the production cost of the launch of the serial Angara will be 100/2, 5 = $ 40 million.
Yes, damn it, and it's not that scary! Vaughn, the cost of launching the American relatively new launch vehicle "Delta IV Heavy" is estimated at $ 254 million - in 2004 prices, mind you. So, if the Angara, which has fallen in price in the series, will give not 40, but the same 100 million, then everything will be abgemakht.
There is another topic in the Izvestia article in terms of cost. I will single out it in a separate chapter.
And in general it is necessary not so
They remember Elon Musk, the billionaire enthusiast who founded SpaceX, which, as far as I can tell, is now the leader among the "privateers" in the construction of space technology. They made the Dragon spacecraft, the Folken-1 light-class launch vehicle, and now they are perfecting the Folken-9 heavy-class carrier (about 20 tons into the geo-transfer orbit).
They write that this very "Folken-9" launch will cost $ 78 million. Very much, they write, it will be a cheap rocket, cheaper than everyone else. And this is explained, they say, by a certain special organization of production, which has never been the case with the monsters of aerospace. Like, the monsters were guided by the narrow specialization of numerous participants in the cooperation; and Musk, they say, decided to do everything himself to the maximum.
I don’t know how he does it. I was taught that specialized companies produce products cheaper than those who “do everything themselves”. But Andrey Ionin speaks these words; and he is not only a Ph. D. and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky. He also has an MBA in Strategic Management. He probably knows better …
Although I would suggest that Musk's products are cheaper because he relies on the scientific and technological achievements of the very "monsters" that he is going to make in the commercial launch market. Maybe that's why he does everything himself, that he doesn't have to invent technologies, and materials and units can be bought from the same "monsters" …
And in general, let's see how much the Folken-9 will cost when the real commercial launches begin.
In general, I am for Angara. Although she, of course, has inherent flaws.
Right to left - light to heavy. With a spire, the emergency rescue system is manned. No superheavy
At a meeting in Roscosmos, its head unexpectedly announced that the Angara launch vehicle project, which is approaching a great milestone - the first flight tests of the first model of the launch vehicle family - that this is a project, this rocket is leading the Russian cosmonautics to a dead end. In the first part, I examined the claims to the project - of course, only those that are listed in the Izvestia newspaper, which published information about this meeting. And I came to the conclusion that they are not enough for such harsh statements.
In this part I will fantasize about the reasons for such a revision of the assessment - from the main perspective of the space industry to its dead end. But first, a few words about the real shortcomings of the Angara launch vehicle concept.
Is versatile good or bad?
The main one is the same universalism. Not even universalism proper, by which I mean here the construction of a line of missiles from light to super-heavy on the basis of unified rocket modules - at Khrunichev they are called that way - URM-1 and URM-2.
In the first studies of 1995, the Angara did not look at all the same as it does now. It was a two-stage rocket with tandem stages. And the stages were tricky: in the main body of the stage, the diameter of the Zenit launch vehicle, there was a tank with an oxidizer and a propulsion system; and two fuel tanks of the same diameter were hung on the sides.
But in 1997, the concept began to change, and as a result, an assembly of full-fledged missiles of two types, called URMs, appeared. Of these, light, medium and heavy are assembled - about 25 tons of payload - as well as super-heavy - 35 and 50 tons. which, in fact, can be brought up to 100 tons.
So, in those years when the appearance of a rocket assembled from URMs was being formed, the task of mass launching of relatively light spacecraft seemed especially urgent, and URMs were focused precisely on this type of load - 2 tons into a low orbit.
This is what experts consider to be the main and, unfortunately, an unavoidable drawback of the Angara project.
And the fact that the assembly of different missiles from unified modules gives worse results in terms of weight efficiency than the individual development of each stage for each missile is, of course, known. But here the mass factor should already come into play. With a sufficiently large series (you should know what …) the “universalist” approach should give savings in terms of the total cost of removing a kilogram of load.
The stumbling block - the rocket for the moon
Later, when Ostapenko commented on this meeting to Izvestia journalists, he was not so categorical. He said that the "Angara" program will continue, that the start at Vostochny will be under construction. But, they say, we need a 70-75 t rocket for the Moon, and there, you see, even more. And whether it is necessary to do this within the framework of the "Angara", this is the question. Now, they say, proposals for such a super-heavy rocket are being prepared by both RSC Energia and Samara's Progress TsSKB (let us add: even the Miass SRC named after Makeev and someone else).
Great, this is all great. But a little strange.
That's what's strange to me.
A few years ago, a 40-50 ton rocket was considered necessary for the Moon. Look again at the picture of Rus-M in the first part, there is the largest configuration - 50 tonnes. By the way, mind you, the previous one is 35 tonnes; exactly like "Angara A7.2B" and "A7.2", respectively.
These are heavy super-heavy "Angars" I wonder what the missiles with a carrying capacity of 100 tons are called now? And 200?
Now it turned out that you need not 50, but 70–75 tons. Good; But in what way is, say, "Rus-M" better than "Angara" in this reasoning? Yes, nothing; and even worse, because the Angara project, one way or another, will soon start flying. On the technical side, I once tried to compare "Rus-M" and "Angara" - of course, in the old blog. It turned out that "Angara" is better.
By the way, in the old blog, I wrote several articles in this vein for various informational reasons - about various projects and contests that have been announced over the past ten years. Rather than putting a lot of links to a third-party resource, maybe it's better for me to transfer these articles here without delaying too much? Another turn in the technical policy of the space agency is a good reason to collect in one place a retrospective of such turns. What do you think?
Okay, let's say, among the "post-Soviet" projects of launch vehicles there is not a single one that explicitly includes a launch vehicle for 75 tons of payload - at least among the projects that received widespread press. You have to, like, start from scratch.
But is this the reason for such categorical statements about the closure of "Angara"? For the twentieth time I say: a project that has gone further than any other. A project that finally promises in the real future the heavy launch vehicle of the new generation so much needed by Russia? Proton is the first generation! They will bury us!
No, not the reason. And all this talk about the high cost, about suboptimality - all this is also very weak argumentation. Where does the hope come from that competing organizations will be cheaper and more optimal? Even if it turns out on paper - who can vouch for what we will come to at the end of the road? "Angara" can be calculated even now, at the very least, based on the available real material.
But then why?
Emotions have not been canceled yet …
Somewhere in the early 1990s, in the GKNPTs them. Khrunicheva, a woman named Tatiana came to work. Her last name was Dyachenko; If someone else does not understand, I’ll tell you straight - Yeltsin’s daughter.
Under this case, the Khrunichevsky General developed a special relationship with himself. Of course, I repeat rumors, but what of that? We said that a special unit was created for Tatiana, which began to deal with spacecraft. To what extent this is so, I do not know; but it looks like the truth. In my opinion, we (my design bureau) made their first satellite with them.
There is no need to explain what a special relationship is; I don’t know anything concrete. But it is clear that these are some kind of preferences, some kind of support in controversial issues. Some, probably, opportunities to act over the head of the managing-supervising state department, whatever it is called (it seems that it was called Rosaviakosmos then).
Well, the Khrunichevites have made enemies for themselves - both among industry organizations and in these very state departments. They say there was a banquet dedicated to the anniversary of one of the highest Khrunichevites. His friend spoke almost from school, who served in the department. I talked for a long time about the merits of the hero of the day, about the importance and coolness of the work he performed. And he finished his speech with the words: we will not miss your "Angara".
They say there was a scandal. I asked the speaker: was this a clumsy joke? No, he says, rather a puncture of a not quite sober person …
It is interesting that the next anniversary of that Khrunichevite was already celebrated by this irreconcilable friend as a member of the GKNPTs collective.
This is not a sentence yet
The previous head of Roscosmos, General Popovkin, was an unequivocal supporter of Angara. Regarding Ostapenko, no definite judgment has yet been made on this issue. That is, there is no reason to state that he is an enemy. It is clear that competitors and simply disinterested enemies will try - and have already tried - to turn him against Angara. It's that simple. And now it is especially simple for us, which is confirmed by the mess with contests and "epoch-making decisions", which I reminded about in the first part.
It may well be that General Ostapenko simply does not want to thoughtlessly continue the line that he did not start. It may well be that he has his own ideas about both the priorities of the space program and the correct organization of work on it. He could for the past short time, or even earlier, he has been in cosmic affairs all his life; he could honestly come to the conclusion that if the task was to settle the moon before the Chinese, then a large rocket is needed - more than the largest of those presented before. In the end, after all, in those lines, after all, there really was no car with 75 or more tons. And why not hear about this in Samara, which was building the 120-ton "Energy"?
In general, it is too early to order a memorial service for "Angara". So far, even the construction of the second launch at Vostochny has not been canceled; although the construction of the first has not yet begun … Oh, our life is not easy, changeable …
