ROSCOMOS in free fall since Ukraine invasion

ecarfan · Aug 15, 2024

Eric Berger: Facing “financial crisis,” Russia on pace for lowest launch total in 6 decades

Russia's space industry has been operating at a loss in recent years and may not begin to break even until 2025. Russia's invasion of Ukraine also came as United Launch Alliance finally ended its practice of purchasing RD-180 rocket engines, manufactured by NPO Energomash. This fact, in concert with decreased commercial demand for Russia's Proton and Soyuz rockets, has forced the Russian government to subsidize these elements of Roscosmos.

But they have big plans:

Russia is also continuing the development of its oft-delayed "Russian Orbital Station," or ROS. The current plans call for the launch of a scientific and power module in 2027, with the core of the station (four modules) to be launched into orbit by 2030. Further expansions will take place in the early 2030s. It should be noted, however, that these dates can charitably be described as aspirational.

As for new rockets:

In 2020, Russia aimed to debut the methane-powered Amur rocket with a reusable first stage by 2026… But don't expect to see Amur any time soon. Yelchaninov revealed that Russian and Kazakh officials are still in the design phase of a launch site at Baikonur, rather than actively building anything.

And my favorite:

Roscosmos would like to develop a single-stage-to-orbit rocket named Corona in the future. This appears to be an updated take on a Russian rocket design that is more than three decades old.

The Wikipedia page about CORONA states that development started in 1992, and the goal is to put 6-11t in LEO but with the “use of reusable boosters”. Wait; then it won’t be an SSTO vehicle. In any case, there is no evidence that any hardware has been built. So at this point it sounds like a fantasy.

"Russia-Moscow-VDNH-Rocket R-7-1" by Alex Zelenko is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

BigNick · Aug 19, 2024

I know the article was about POCKOCMOC and repercussions from the invasion, but hasn't NASA also experienced recent cuts to their budget?

NASA warns of “devastating” impacts of potential budget cuts

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson claims proposed spending reductions for fiscal year 2024 could have “devastating and potentially unrecoverable” effects.

spacenews.com