Russia to Develop a New-Generation Manned Spacecraft

[Ben the Space Brit]

Interesting overall architecture.  It looks like they're planning for the vehicle to be a 'go anywhere, do anything' crew vehicle, much as some have proposed for Orion.  Any word on how likely this is to be funded and to reach operational status?

So far the listed requirements seem to make it limited to LEO and the moon.

That's an awfully large potential field of operations.

Remember: Orion can't go to Mars, or even an NEO, without extra mission and propulsion modules.  Unassisted, Orion is also limited to LEO and a lunar fly-around.

[Lars_J]

I desagree with Danderman.

Probably the PTS like (Orion like) spacecraft will be the kind of spacecraft which perfectly fit the 21th century space activities.

I bet that NASA (may be through COTS/private developments) will eventually follow the russian way in a few years.

By cancelling the initial Orion project Obama offered a unique opportunity to Russia to take the lead in spite of a 1/6 NASA budget!

But wait and see.

Seeing as how it doesn't appear to be capable of a Mars mission, it doesn't seem likely.

Well nether is Orion, for that matter. And even if it were to be brought along a far future Mars mission, it would require block upgrades to do it.

Orion was/is optimized for lunar missions.

But back to the PPTK/PTK/PTS/whatever - can we have an official English abbreviation already?. Claiming that it will give Russia a lead in manned spaceflight is weak at best. Progress on the design has been anemic (and funding starved), and the same will continue to be the case. And the progress on launch vehicles for it is even more stalled. If you think NASA's budget woes are bad, they are nothing compared to their situation.

The current schedule for PTS (2015 unmanned flight, manned by 2018?) seems optimistic. Unless Orion is somehow cancelled altogether, and I was a betting man, I would be that Orion will fly before PTS. (both unmanned and manned)

[fregate]

Lars_J, for god sake we do not have an official Russian spacecraft name!
IMHO the nearest English abbreviation is MTV NG - New Generation Manned Transportation Vehicle.
 

[Lars_J]

Ok, I thought there was an official russian name.

[Patchouli]

A couple of notes:

This "node" has a diameter of 3.3 meters, same as the proposed Commercial Space Station node, so it looks like someone has come up with tooling for 3.3 meter diameter hardware at Energia.

Also, the architecture for adding the node, ie the Apollo-style "turnaround" docking requires the Node to carry a rear docking port, with a cost of some 200 kg, plus the upper stage now must support extended mission times in LEO for the docking, which is a first for Russia. The upside is that the Node can be left at the space station, for expansion purposes.

What I see is that Energia is doing what NASA contractors often do, at the request of NASA (via the bidding requirements), showing every single conceivable expansion capability for a core concept, when the core concept itself is rarely fully funded. So, just because we will see a lot of expansion capabilities, its unlikely that these will ever be funded.

In fact, I see this entire concept to be junked when and if Orion gets junked, its the classic Soviet-style "imitate NASA". Typically, the Russians kill their imitations of NASA a couple of years after the original NASA concepts are killed, in this case, Roskosmos has not figured out that Orion is probably a zombie, so this PPTK noise probably has got a year or two of Powerpoint activity left in it. If Energia were smart, they would try to extract $$ for Soyuz upgrades in the name of preparing for PPTK.

That or they'll dust off Kliper which supposedly was fairly far along before being shelved.
It could even be called a Soyuz upgrade it's self as it did use an upgraded Soyuz booster and a lot of it's systems where derived from Soyuz.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kliper_history.html

I would not be surprised if work on Soyuz-K the lunar Soyuz and Kliper along with work on upgrading the Soyuz rocket has continued under the radar.

Another project they almost considered resurrecting before the Bush moon stunt was MAK-OS.
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya6.htm

[fregate]

IMHO Kliper and MAKS project are already a HISTORY. PPTS on another hand got a strong financial backup and political will to get independent access to space (triad of spaceport, launch vehicle and manned transportation space system).
From pragmatic point of view PPTS is a logical Soyuz spacecraft evolution (only exotic landing system is something conceptually new).     

[fregate]

Cargo Configuration of PTK NP from Anatoly Zak website:

In the course of the preliminary design of the PPTS spacecraft system in 2009-2010, RKK Energia studied this expendable vehicle for one-way cargo delivery missions. Copyright © 2010 Anatoly Zak

[Maverick]

There's 55 presentations/500mbs of RSC's ESAS style presentations on this vehicle now on L2's Russian section. In Russian, but lots of pictures/diagrams and there's explanations added in English in the upload areas. Impressive.

[nickyp]

Whats the status of this then?  Is there funding, has any hardware been built?  etc..

Basically, is there any chance of this not happening?

[Downix]

Whats the status of this then?  Is there funding, has any hardware been built?  etc..

Basically, is there any chance of this not happening?

Some of the hardware for it flies quite regularly, the Atlas V.  The Rus-M shares the engine of the Atlas V.  As of October, they were doing the detailed design work on it, the fine drawings before parts fabrication and assembly, so I understand. 

[marsavian]

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15934783&PageNum=0

MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev believes that Russia should develop its own program for the exploration of deep space in general and the Moon in particular. "I think this is a very important topic, even in terms of our scientific ambitions. If we fail to address it at all, we shall degrade and will be pushed to the sidelines," the president said at a meeting with young scientists on Tuesday.

Medvedev admitted that he could not promise such a program would be ready in one year’s time, “which would let us catch up with the Americans.”

The president added that the topic was a subject matter for research by experts in Europe and China. “Everybody is willing to get in space, it is necessary to understand just where our place in space and on the Moon is," the head of state said.

[Danderman]

Whats the status of this then?  Is there funding, has any hardware been built?  etc..

Basically, is there any chance of this not happening?

There is a very good chance of this not happening. For example, if NASA were to cancel Orion, and move to a different design, within a couple of years, Roskosmos would direct Energia to copy that design.

[Dmitry_V_home]

Alternative variant of spaceship PTK-NP from Khrunichev. Spring 2009

[Dmitry_V_home]

Interior of spaceship PTK-NP  from Khrunichev

[nickyp]

Ah, very much like the TKS.  I have always been a bit wary of a hatch going through the heatshield though, surely its just something to go wrong on re-entry?