Russia designs partly reusable space booster

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JUNE 17. Russia has designed a partly reusable space booster that may give it an edge in the international market of commercial launches.

The new rocket, called Angara, will have a reusable first stage which will be unveiled at the Paris Air Show-2001. The first stage booster, Baikal, is equipped with wings and jet engines to enable it to return to a launch site as a pilotless plane after giving the Angara rocket initial acceleration. The reusable booster will reduce the cost of lifting payloads in orbit, eliminate the hazards of falling first-stage debris on the earth and therefore lift restrictions on space launches over populated areas.

The partly reusable Angara rocket, designed and built at the Khrunichev space corporation, will replace the venerable Proton rockets that have served as Russia's space workhorse for almost 30 years. By designing the Baikal booster, Russia has stolen a march on the American Shuttle programme, which uses a reusable orbital stage. Shuttle has turned out to be a commercial failure as its cost of placing payloads in orbit is several times higher compared to Proton rockets.

The two-stage Angara rocket with the Baikal reusable first stage is expected to be test-launched in 2003. The Khrunichev company plans to build the Angara in three modifications - light, medium and heavy-duty - depending on the number of oxygen-kerosene engines, from two to six, installed in the first stage. In its most powerful configuration, the Angara will be able to lift 26 tonnes of payload in low-earth orbit. Fitted with a cryogenic third stage, the Angara rocket will place 4.5-tonne payloads into geo-stationary orbits, even from Russia's northern cosmodrome at Plesetsk. Angara will use a liquid oxygen/kerosene first stage and a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen second stage, which are less ecologically harmful than Proton's hypergolic propellants.

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Section  : International
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