Russian Angara
 

Well, what do you know . . . .

The first post-Soviet Russian booster finally made it to the pad.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2014/11/1...-to-launch-pad/

Much like the US aerospace industry, Russia's has produced a massive amount of vaporware in the last twenty years. I did not believe this one would ever make the pad much less be ready to fly in the next 60 days. This rocket will replace Proton and will likely launch the next-generation Russian capsule which may have seating for twelve! The test flights will be over the next 5 years at which time Proton will be retired.

For those of you wondering, in nominal 1/64 scale, core and boosters (for the Russians, first and second stages) are all identical and would be Series 18 tubing. The third stage would be BT-70 and the payload fairing would be BT-80. Gonna need some custom Sandman cones for the boosters, transitions and the fairing.

I'm gonna need to go roll a Jiffy-Mart to pay for this one.

Russia has all the cool stuff these days. :(

Fins...people...fins...is that too much to ask for?


Bill

Yep it is.

You know, if they'd continued the Saturn V for a few more flights, it would've shed its fins as well (not to mention the distinctive roll patterns).

So the outboards and the central motor are all RD-191's. The four outboards are shed "a few minutes after liftoff". Then the "throttleable RD-191 engine will ramp up power to continue the rocket’s acceleration into orbit."

Does that mean the outboard 191's are different than the core 191 because it's throttleable, implying the others are not?

Doug...just curious...

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Looks good... hope it flies well...

Proton has been a good rocket, but it's had plenty of problems along the way too... Plus, it uses highly toxic hypergolic propellants, which is a big negative from a handling and launch accident standpoint... Plus, kero-lox propellant combination has a better specific impulse-- more payload for the same amount of propellant!

I was kind of sorry to see the Rus-M rocket cancelled a few years back... but it was pretty close to this one anyway, in design philosophy and general appearance. Looked to me like the Russians were taking a page from the US playbook, developing a PAIR of new rockets (as we did with the EELV's) in case one ran into problems, the other could take up the slack. The Russians didn't have the money to do both of them though by all appearances.

It'll be interesting to see how this works out...

Later! OL JR :)

Not sure... May just mean that they keep the outboards going full bore and throttle the core engine down to reduce propellant consumption... let the outboards do the heavy lifting, jettison them, then throttle up the core to full power and go for broke...

Wouldn't surprise me if the outboards were "simplified" for non-throttleability, BUT the more versions of something you have, the more expensive it is to support the different versions and the more risk of a screw up somewhere along the line-- wrong parts installed on the wrong engine, etc... having a single version pretty much eliminates that risk... I doubt there'd be a lot of cost savings anyway...

Later! OL JR :)

Actually, all five are throttleable.

Bill, look up "Baikal" . You want fins? How about Angara with Scissor-Wing glide back boosters. I kid you not, it looks just like a Scissor-Wing Transport. I just can't find a picture right now.

The Russians have big plans for this rocket. It better work. It does not need to launch from Baikonur which is now in Kazakhstan. If they launch from Pelsetsk (north of Moscow) or the new complex at Vostochny (Far East Siberia) they can still have Proton-like performance. And that's the deal with the ISS; with the different inclination that best suits these launch sites, they could build a new station that flies over more Russian soil, reaping greater return on the Earth-Science mission for Russia. As to space stations, they don't need us; they never did. It's the money that makes us good for them. The minute we stop paying them, they're out.

http://www.terranischer-club-eden.c...l/sc46_baik.htm
Cool.

Wow, I feel I'm in elite company. It's so nice coming here and reading such articulate, well-informed posts on such interesting subjects.

All hail Scott for YORF!

Doug

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