Meanwhile, it seems that CNIIHM is now also beginning to play a role in Russia’s manned space program. This can be determined from a court case between CNIIHM and the Progress Rocket and Space Center (RKTs Progress) in which RKK Energiya acts a third party. The court case is still ongoing and so far only some preliminary documentation has been published. https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/14a3c703-0dad-44e2-bf3b-d0d982e4e8a7What can be learned from this is that CNIIHM received some type of contract from RKTs Progress on January 22, 2020, with Progress in turn being a subcontractor to RKK Energiya. The contract number makes it possible to establish that the work is part of a contract awarded by Roscosmos to RKK Energiya on December 19, 2016 for “Proton-NEM”. This covers all the work needed to prepare the Science Power Module (NEM) for launch and place it into orbit with a Proton rocket. At the time, NEM was still planned to be attached to the Russian segment of the International Space Station, but it is now scheduled to become the first element of the new Russian space station called ROSS. It is now also likely to fly on an Angara-A5M rocket from Vostochnyy instead of a Proton from Baikonur. RKTs Progress has a dual role in the NEM project. It built a static test model of NEM’s pressurized section and may also build the hull of the flight-rated version (although that is not entirely clear). As is known from technical specifications for Proton-NEM, it is also responsible for what in Russian is called the “assembly and protection unit” (“sborochno-zashchitnyy blok” or SZB), which is a technical term for the combination of the payload fairing and the adapter that attaches it to the rocket’s upper stage. In June 2021, RKTs Progress issued a press release on tests of the SZB, including a picture of a separation test of one of its elements (see attachment 2).https://www.samspace.ru/news/press_relizy/15314/CNIIHM is presumably involved in the latter work, not the development of the module itself (which is covered by another contract between Roscosmos and RKK Energiya). The contract number includes the abbreviation TsBS (ЦБС), which may refer to the specific system that CNIIHM is responsible for, but it is not seen in space-related literature. Given its historical background in explosives and solid-fuel engines, CNIIHM may provide pyrotechnic charges needed to separate elements of the payload fairing, but that is entirely speculative.