Lunar and Martian programs of Russia need super-heavy delivery vehicles
Nowadays, penetration into deep space, declared in the Russian and American advanced space programs, however, like activities in near-earth space, is inextricably linked with the creation of reliable, economical, multifunctional transport systems. Moreover, they must be suitable for solving a very wide range of civil and military tasks. Apparently, Russia should pay attention to the creation of reusable space heavy transport.
Today, Russian space thought has finally reoriented itself to long-distance expeditions. We are talking about a phased exploration of the moon - a program that has not been returned for 40 years. In the distant future - manned flights to Mars. In this case, we will not discuss the aforementioned programs, but note that we cannot do without heavy launch vehicles capable of launching hundreds of tons of payload into low orbit.
Angara and Yenisei
The military aspect is not going anywhere either. The basic element of the American space missile defense system, which has already become practically a reality, will be a transport system capable of delivering numerous combat platforms, observation and control satellites to Earth's orbit. It should also provide for the prevention and repair of these vehicles directly in space.
In general, a system of colossal energy potential has been designed. After all, only one combat platform with a 60 megawatt hydrogen fluoride laser has an estimated weight of 800 tons. But the effectiveness of directed energy weapons can only be high if multiple such platforms are deployed in orbit. It is clear that the total cargo turnover of the next series of "star wars" will amount to tens of thousands of tons, which must be systematically delivered to near-earth space. But that's not all.
Today, space reconnaissance complexes play a key role in the use of high-precision weapons on Earth. This forces both the United States and Russia to constantly increase and improve their orbital groupings. Moreover, the high-tech nature of spacecraft at the same time requires providing for their orbital repair.
But back to the lunar theme. At the end of January, when plans for a comprehensive study of the Moon with the prospect of deploying an inhabited base there, the head of the head domestic space corporation Energia, Vitaly Lopota, spoke about the possibility of a flight to the Moon from the point of view of launch vehicles.
Sending expeditions to the Moon is impossible without the creation of super-heavy launch vehicles with a payload capacity of 74-140 tons, while the most powerful Russian Proton rocket puts 23 tons into orbit. “To fly to the Moon and return back, you need a two-launch launch - two rockets with a carrying capacity of 75 tons, a single-launch flight to the Moon and back without landing is 130–140 tons. If we take a 75-ton rocket as a base, then a practical mission to the Moon with landing is an eight-launch scheme. If the rocket has a carrying capacity of less than 75 tons, as they suggest - 25-30 tons, then the development of even the Moon becomes absurd,”Lopota said, speaking at the Royal Readings at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
Denis Lyskov, State Secretary, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, spoke about the need to have a heavy carrier in mid-May. He said that at present Roskosmos, together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, is preparing a space exploration program, which will become an integral part of the next Federal Space Program of Russia for 2016–2025. “To really talk about a flight to the moon, we need a super-heavy class carrier with a carrying capacity of about 80 tons. Now this project is at the stage of development, in the near future we will prepare the necessary documents to submit them to the government,”Lyskov stressed.
To date, the largest Russian rocket in operation is the Proton, with a payload of 23 tons in low orbit and 3.7 tons in geostationary orbit. Russia is currently developing the Angara family of missiles with a payload capacity of 1.5 to 35 tons. Unfortunately, the creation of this technique has turned into a real long-term construction and the first launch has been postponed for many years, including due to disagreements with Kazakhstan. Now it is expected that "Angara" will fly at the beginning of summer from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in a light configuration. According to the head of Roscosmos, there are plans to create a heavy version of the Angara, capable of launching a payload weighing 25 tons into low orbit.
But such indicators, as we see, are far from sufficient for the implementation of the program of interplanetary flights and deep space exploration. At the Royal Readings, the head of Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, said that the government was preparing a proposal to develop a super-heavy rocket capable of launching cargo weighing over 160 tons into low orbit. “This is a real challenge. In terms of and higher figures, - said Ostapenko.
It is difficult to say how soon these plans will become reality. Nevertheless, the domestic rocket industry has a certain reserve for the creation of heavy space transport. In the late 1980s, it was possible to create a heavy liquid-propellant launch vehicle "Energia", capable of launching a payload weighing up to 120 tons into low orbit. If we talk about the complete reanimation of this program, it is not yet necessary, then there are definitely draft designs of a heavy carrier based on Energia.
The main part of Energia can be used on the new rocket - the successfully operating RD-0120 LPRE. Actually, the project of a heavy rocket using these engines exists at the Khrunichev Space Center, which is the head organization for the production of our only heavy launch vehicle, Proton.
We are talking about the Yenisei-5 transport system, the development of which began back in 2008. It is assumed that the rocket with a length of 75 meters will be equipped with the first stage with three oxygen-hydrogen LPRE RD-0120, the production of which was launched by the Voronezh Design Bureau of Chemical Automation in 1976. According to the specialists of the Khrunichev Center, it will not be difficult to restore this program, and in the future it is possible to reuse these engines.
However, besides the obvious advantages, the Yenisei has one significant, frankly, today an unavoidable drawback - dimensions. The fact is that according to the plans, the main load of future launches will fall on the Vostochny cosmodrome being built in the Far East. In any case, heavy and super-heavy promising carriers are supposed to be sent into space from there.
The diameter of the first stage of the Yenisei-5 rocket is 4, 1 meters and does not allow its transportation by rail, at least without a significant volumetric and very costly modernization of the road infrastructure. Due to problems with transportation, at one time it was necessary to impose restrictions on the diameter of the main stages of the Rus-M rocket, which remained on the drawing boards.
In addition to the Khrunichev Space Center, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) was also involved in the development of a heavy carrier. In 2007, they proposed a project of a launch vehicle that uses, in part, the layout of the Energia rocket. Only the payload in the new rocket was placed in the upper part, and not in the side container, as in its predecessor.
Benefit and feasibility
The Americans, of course, are not a decree for us, but their heavy transport, the development of which has already entered the home stretch, implies partial reusable use. This summer, private company SpaceX plans to launch the first launch of the new Falcon Heavy, the largest rocket launched since 1973. That is, since the time of the American lunar program with launches of the gigantic carrier Saturn-5, created by the father of American launch vehicles, Wernher von Braun. But if that rocket was intended exclusively for the delivery of expeditions to the Moon and was disposable, then the new one can already be used for Martian expeditions. In addition, it is planned to return to Earth sustainer stages like the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket (R - Reusable, reusable).
Space shuttles are in demand again
The first stage of this rocket is equipped with landing struts used to stabilize the rocket and for a soft landing. After separation, the first stage decelerates by briefly switching on three of the nine engines to ensure entry into the atmosphere at an acceptable speed. Already near the surface, the central engine is turned on, and the stage is ready to make a soft landing.
The mass of the payload that the Falcon Heavy rocket can lift is 52,616 kilograms, which is approximately twice as much as other heavy rockets - the American Delta IV Heavy, the European Ariane and the Chinese Long March - can lift.
Reusability is, of course, beneficial in the case of high-frequency space work. Studies have shown that the use of disposable complexes is more profitable than a reusable transport system in programs with a rate of no more than five launches per year, provided that the alienation of land for falling fields of separating parts will be temporary, and not permanent, with the possibility of evacuating the population, livestock and equipment from hazardous areas. …
This clause is due to the fact that the cost of land acquisition has never been taken into account in the calculations, because until recently, losses with alienation or even with temporary evacuation have never been compensated for and remain difficult to calculate. And they make up a significant part of the cost of operating missile systems. With a program scale of more than 75 launches in 15 years, reusable systems have the advantage, and the economic effect of their use increases with the number.
In addition, the transition from disposable vehicles for launching heavy payloads to reusable ones leads to a significant reduction in the volume of equipment production. So, when two alternative systems are used in one space program, the required number of blocks is reduced by four to five times, the number of central block bodies - by 50, liquid engines for the second stage - by nine times. Thus, the savings from reduced production volumes when using a reusable launch vehicle are roughly equal to the cost of building one.
Back in the Soviet Union, calculations were made of the costs of post-flight maintenance and repair and restoration work of reusable systems. We used the available factual data obtained by the developers as a result of ground bench and flight tests, as well as the operation of the airframe of the Buran orbital spacecraft with a heat-shielding coating, long-range aviation aircraft, multiple-use liquid engines of the RD-170 and RD-0120 type. According to the research results, the costs of maintenance and post-flight repairs are less than 30 percent of the costs of manufacturing new rocket units.
Oddly enough, the idea of reusability manifested itself back in the 1920s in Germany, crushed by the Versailles Treaty, which united the European technical community, gripped by a rocket fever. In the Third Reich in 1932-1942, under the leadership of Eigen Zenger, a missile bomber project was successfully developed. It was supposed to create an aircraft that, using a rail launch cart, would accelerate to high speed, then turn on its own rocket engine, rise out of the atmosphere, from where it would ricochet through the dense layers of the atmosphere and reach a long range. The device was supposed to start from Western Europe and land on the territory of Japan, it was intended to bombard the territory of the United States. The last reports of this project were interrupted in 1944.
In the 50s in the United States, he served as an impetus for the development of a space plane project, which preceded the Dyna-Sor rocket plane. In the Soviet Union, proposals for the development of such systems were considered by Yakovlev, Mikoyan and Myasishchev in 1947, but did not receive development due to a number of difficulties associated with technical implementation.
With the rapid development of rocketry in the late 40s - early 50s, the need to complete work on a manned rocket bomber disappeared. In the missile industry, a direction of ballistic-type cruise missiles was formed, which, based on the general concept of their use, found their place in the general defense system of the USSR.
But in the United States, research work on a rocket plane was supported by the military. At that time, it was believed that conventional aircraft or aircraft projectiles with air-jet engines were the best means of delivering charges to enemy territory. Projects for the Navajo gliding missile program were born. Bell Aircraft continued to research the space plane in order to use it not as a bomber, but as a reconnaissance vehicle. In 1960, a contract was signed with Boeing for the development of the Daina-Sor suborbital reconnaissance rocket plane, which was supposed to be launched with the Titan-3 rocket.
However, the USSR returned to the idea of space aircraft in the early 60s and launched work at the Mikoyan Design Bureau on two projects of suborbital vehicles at once. The first envisaged a booster plane, the second - a Soyuz rocket with an orbital plane. The two-stage aerospace system was called "Spiral" or Project "50/50".
The orbital rocket ship was launched from the back of a powerful Tu-95K carrier aircraft at high altitude. Rocket plane "Spiral" on liquid propellant rocket engines reached near-earth orbit, performed planned work there and returned to Earth, gliding in the atmosphere. The functions of this compact flying airplane spacecraft were much broader than just working in orbit. A full-scale model of a rocket plane made several flights in the atmosphere.
The Soviet project provided for the creation of an apparatus weighing more than 10 tons with folding wing consoles. An experimental version of the device in 1965 was ready for the first flight as a subsonic analogue. To solve the problems of thermal effects on the structure in flight and controllability of the vehicle at subsonic and supersonic speeds, flying models were built, which were named "Bor". Their tests were carried out in 1969-1973. A deep study of the results obtained led to the need to create two models: "Bor-4" and "Bor-5". However, the accelerated pace of work on the Space Shuttle program, and most importantly, the indisputable success of the Americans in this area, required adjustments to Soviet plans.
In general, reusable aerospace technology for domestic developers is by no means something new and unknown. Taking into account the acceleration of programs to build up satellite systems, interplanetary communications and deep space exploration, we can confidently speak of the need to create precisely reusable launch vehicles, including heavy launch vehicles.
Overall, plans to develop a Russian heavy missile are quite optimistic. In mid-May, Oleg Ostapenko clarified that the Federal Space Program for 2016–2025 will still provide for the design of a super-heavy launch vehicle with a payload capacity of 70–80 tons. “The FKP has not yet been approved, it is being formed. We will publish it in the near future,”emphasizes the head of Roscosmos.
