Roscosmos expects to create a launch vehicle with a return first stage

The draft Federal Space Program for 2016–2025, sent out by Roscosmos Corporation for approval to the ministries, provides for the creation of a “space rocket complex with a reusable light carrier rocket at Vostochny Cosmodrome.” Roscosmos wants to create a missile with a winged first stage, which after working off does not burn, but returns to the launch area for reuse.

One way to reduce the cost of putting cargo into space orbit is to use reusable equipment. For example, in the launch vehicle, the most expensive part is its first stage, which, for example, contains such costly units as marching engines. Naturally, engineers repeatedly returned to the topic of the returned first stage. Today, such experiments are conducted by both state space programs and private firms.

1. The company of the American billionaire Ilon Mask SpaceX is trying to plant the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket due to the operation of rocket engines. The missile is already operational, but both attempts to save the first stage were unsuccessful .

2. Another US company, the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security, is working on a Vulcan rocket concept . Her first step is planned to be returned to the ground with a parachute.

3. The European AirBus Group is working on the Adeline first stage return project. For 5 years, the project has not gone beyond the concept stage, but about € 15 million has already been invested in it.

4. At the State Rocket Center named after Makeeva is being developed " Russian woman"- a two-stage heavy launch vehicle. It is planned that the first stage of the rocket can be used up to 25 times. The return of the stage is carried out along a ballistic trajectory by the repeated inclusion of standard engines. In 2011, the center presented its development at the Roscosmos competition for the development of the Reusable Rocket and Space System of the first stage (MRKS-1).

5. But according to the results of the competition, the order was received by the GKNPC Khrunicheva with the Baikal-Angara project. After all, the GKNPC together with the Molniya NGOs have been working since 2001 on a reusable accelerator of the first stage of the Angara launch vehicle. The first concept was shown at the MAKS-2001 aerospace show. Having won the tender, GKNPC received 250 million rubles to continue the development of the project.

In 2013, at the Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), Khrunichev commissioned studies of the landing characteristics of the return winged MRX unit, made in the form of a model. The model of the rocket strongly resembles the space shuttles Space Shuttle and Buran.


Rocket

prototype Satisfied with the results, Roscosmos found a place in the new development program for this project, which is still under the code of LEK-VRB. In 2019, it is planned to begin the development of technical specifications, and from 2021 - to provide financing in the amount of 12.5 billion rubles, and this money will go only to develop the rocket. It is expected that the infrastructure for its launch and landing will be built at the expense of funds allocated for the development of spaceports.

“OKR“ LEK-VRB ”cannot be called the direct successor of the MRKS, but it is an heir in essence,” the Khrunichev press service explained. - The last 10 years it was GKNPTS them. M.V. Khrunicheva was engaged in reusable topics in the space industry.

“The first step to be saved is a double-edged sword,” says Andrei Ionin, corresponding member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. - So far no one has saved liquid rocket engines or tried to reuse them. You need to carefully watch how the costs of creating and operating a reusable stage will be economically justified. After all, if you save 20%, but at the same time the rocket will explode five times more often, then nobody needs such a saving.

According to Ionin, an alternative way to reduce the cost of launches could be to reduce the cost of engines, the cost of which reaches 50% of the total cost of the carrier.