Proposed Russian Ultra-Light Launcher

[Danderman]

World of Tanks creator to invest in new Russian ultra-light rocket

http://english.pravda.ru/news/business/09-12-2014/129257-world_of_tanks_rocket-0/#.VIkazsmkg9V

Sergei Burkatovsky, known as one of the creators of the popular online game World of Tanks, is to invest from five to ten million rubles in Lin Industrial, a Russian developer of carrier rockets. The investment will be used to create ultra-light rocket "Taimyr", TASS reports. 

Chief Designer at Lin Industrial, Alexander Ilyin, said that the funds would be used to develop and test a prototype of a modular ultralight "Taimyr" carrier rocket with a thrust of 50 kg.

Burkatovsky, who serves as the general producer of Wargaming.net, confirmed his intention to invest in the program, but did not specify the exact amount of investments, TASS reports. In his words, it goes about several millions of rubles.

According to Burkatovsky, "Taimyr" will be able to launch smaller spacecraft into orbit, such as student-made satellites. The man explained his participation in the project with his devotion to space exploration.

Lin Industrial is a party at Skolkovo space cluster and soon expects to receive from him minigrant of 5 million rubles. Consulting agencies estimate the global market of small spacecraft at more than $2 billion. "With the "Taimyr" rocket, we expect to take up to 30 percent of the market," said Ilyin.

[Danderman]

Moscow Aviation Institute to help in the development of rocket engine of ultralight class

https://engineeringrussia.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/moscow-aviation-institute-to-help-in-the-development-of-rocket-engine-of-ultralight-class/

The company “Lin Industrial” (resident of “Skolkovo” Fund space cluster) agreed to cooperate with the Moscow Aviation Institute.  The agreement provides for the joint development of the engine for ultra-light rocket “Taimyr”, which can take a test flight in less than a year. Over time, “Lin Industrial” aims to become a kind of “cosmic low-coster”: the consumer receives the required minimum service without overpaying for redundant option.

It is about creating an ultralight vehicle, which is capable of outputting nano and microcraft for relatively little money and in a short time. And it is important that the assembly of such missiles could be established on a regular machine-building enterprise after its proper preparation, told sk.ru Alexander Ilyin, Chief Designer of “Lin Industrial”.

[Danderman]

Lin Industrial: A slingshot into space

https://community.sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2014/09/16/lin-industrial--a-slingshot-into-space.aspx

September 16, 2014 : Lin Industrial is a Russian startup business that believes sending satellites into space should be less epic blastoff and more paper airplane.

Only recently entering the Skolkovo fold as a resident, the company already has a co-investor and is filing for a grant to develop ultralight rocket technology that it says will make escaping earth’s gravity child’s play.

Once it's off the drawing board, the Aldan rocket – named after a gold-flecked river in Far Eastern Siberia – will be able to shuttle microsatellites to low-earth orbit for a fraction of the current costs, which stand at around $80,000 per kilogram, the company says.

“The appearance of this kind of rocket will bring about fundamental changes in this growing market. Young companies, science institutes and universities will be able to send their own satellites into space cheaply and quickly,” says Lin Industrial chief technical officer Alexander Ilin.

Internationally the company sees stern competition from Virgin Galactic, Interorbital Systems and Rocket Lab, but looks likely to find domestic success more quickly as the only firm to service small payloads of up to 100kg.

“No one even wants to get involved in such tasks except us,” the firm’s general manager Alexey Kaltushkin says.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Looks to me that the yellow tanks are kerosene and the blue tanks are LOX, but what is in the brown tank in the first stage?

[hkultala]

Looks to me that the yellow tanks are kerosene and the blue tanks are LOX, but what is in the brown tank in the first stage?

Helium for tank pressurization? There are also those small ball tanks in second stage

[fast]

Looks to me that the yellow tanks are kerosene and the blue tanks are LOX, but what is in the brown tank in the first stage?

helium for pressure feed?...

and may be hyperbolic for small thrusters...

[TrevorMonty]

No specs on engine but given 100kg payload and using 4 1st stage engines, I picking something twice thrust of Electron's engine.

[ChrisWilson68]

They have the same fundamental problem all these other small launchers have -- if and when there's a market for putting lots of small satellites in orbit, it will be done much more cheaply by using a single larger launcher and packing it with lots of small payloads.  Small satellites are generally small because they are very cost-conscious, so nearly all would go for the much cheaper shared launch.  There are some advantages to dedicated single-payload launches, but they're not enough to be worth the huge difference in price between a cheap shared launch and a relatively expensive dedicated launch.

[Prober]

World of Tanks creator to invest in new Russian ultra-light rocket

http://english.pravda.ru/news/business/09-12-2014/129257-world_of_tanks_rocket-0/#.VIkazsmkg9V

Sergei Burkatovsky, known as one of the creators of the popular online game World of Tanks, is to invest from five to ten million rubles in Lin Industrial, a Russian developer of carrier rockets. The investment will be used to create ultra-light rocket "Taimyr", TASS reports. 

Chief Designer at Lin Industrial, Alexander Ilyin, said that the funds would be used to develop and test a prototype of a modular ultralight "Taimyr" carrier rocket with a thrust of 50 kg.

Burkatovsky, who serves as the general producer of Wargaming.net, confirmed his intention to invest in the program, but did not specify the exact amount of investments, TASS reports. In his words, it goes about several millions of rubles.

According to Burkatovsky, "Taimyr" will be able to launch smaller spacecraft into orbit, such as student-made satellites. The man explained his participation in the project with his devotion to space exploration.

Lin Industrial is a party at Skolkovo space cluster and soon expects to receive from him minigrant of 5 million rubles. Consulting agencies estimate the global market of small spacecraft at more than $2 billion. "With the "Taimyr" rocket, we expect to take up to 30 percent of the market," said Ilyin.

ok, how does this:  http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36201.0

affect this new project?   I'm seeing some new alarming cash numbers.

[savuporo]

They have the same fundamental problem all these other small launchers have ..

They also look too much like ICBMs.

[russianhalo117]

Lin Industrial: A slingshot into space

https://community.sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2014/09/16/lin-industrial--a-slingshot-into-space.aspx

September 16, 2014 : Lin Industrial is a Russian startup business that believes sending satellites into space should be less epic blastoff and more paper airplane.

Only recently entering the Skolkovo fold as a resident, the company already has a co-investor and is filing for a grant to develop ultralight rocket technology that it says will make escaping earth’s gravity child’s play.

Once it's off the drawing board, the Aldan rocket – named after a gold-flecked river in Far Eastern Siberia – will be able to shuttle microsatellites to low-earth orbit for a fraction of the current costs, which stand at around $80,000 per kilogram, the company says.

“The appearance of this kind of rocket will bring about fundamental changes in this growing market. Young companies, science institutes and universities will be able to send their own satellites into space cheaply and quickly,” says Lin Industrial chief technical officer Alexander Ilin.

Internationally the company sees stern competition from Virgin Galactic, Interorbital Systems and Rocket Lab, but looks likely to find domestic success more quickly as the only firm to service small payloads of up to 100kg.

“No one even wants to get involved in such tasks except us,” the firm’s general manager Alexey Kaltushkin says.

It looks almost exactly like a 2 stage Zenit. Notice the stage and engine design similarities

[hop]

Looks to me that the yellow tanks are kerosene and the blue tanks are LOX, but what is in the brown tank in the first stage?

The engine layout looks suspiciously like Soyuz, 4 thrust chambers and 4 verniers fed from a single pump (if it's pump fed). Following that analogy, the brown tank would be H2O2 to drive the pump.

A similar color scheme is used in in some Soyuz diagrams like http://sci.esa.int/cluster/11954-schematic-drawing-of-soyuz-fregat-launcher/ (the brown toroidal tank is H202 and green is LN2)

Would seem weird to build a new LV with that tech, but it does have a pretty long track record...

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Note that their chief designer Alexander Ilyin is also an (ex-?) editor at Novosti Kosmonavtiki  and has a more detailed discussion thread there. 

Also thanks to some of the members there (and even Mr. Ilyin himself!) there's some more info in English on the spaceflight simulator forum that I frequently visit. 

[savuporo]

Quick items from this article:
http://community.sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2014/09/17/lin-indastrial-v-kosmos-nalegke.aspx

- Kero/H2O2 rocket
- pressure fed
- they got a competent shop doing scuba tanks etc working on tankage
- cheap, inaccurate guidance  - one of their key pitches. trade secrets. I'd guess a lot of number crunching on modern 32-bit MCUs from MEMS sensors
- team well connected in industry and good background
- some funding coming together, looking to test-fly the control system on HPR

I'd say not a pie in the sky project, so given hardware startup success ratio 5% chance of getting to a test flight

[Steven Pietrobon]

The propellant volumes for H2O2 to kerosene is at least 4 to 1, whereas the main tank volumes shown is closer to 1.8 to 1, which is the ratio for kerolox. Perhaps they meant kerolox using HTP for the turbo pumps.

[john smith 19]

I see baffles in the lower tank to deal with sloshing of a liquid.  So I'd make a purely singular democratic vote that this is meant to be a fuel supply to land the first stage and make it a reusable concept.   

And you'd be wrong. Pretty much all liquid fueled rockets have slosh baffles in their tanks to control slosh on launch. If something that's more 90% of your GTOW starts making coherent independent motions you've got a severe control problem on your hands.

I wouldn't worry about this too much.  It's probably nothing.

Probably true.

[john smith 19]

The propellant volumes for H2O2 to kerosene is at least 4 to 1, whereas the main tank volumes shown is closer to 1.8 to 1, which is the ratio for kerolox. Perhaps they meant kerolox using HTP for the turbo pumps.

Sounds plausible. Isn't that what Soyuz has used for decades?

For a Russian based team that sounds like a pretty good starting point for a vehicle if they have access to that expertise.

[asmi]

For a Russian based team that sounds like a pretty good starting point for a vehicle if they have access to that expertise.

In Russia you can get access to anything if you know right doors to knock to, and what people to talk to.

[Danderman]

The propellant volumes for H2O2 to kerosene is at least 4 to 1, whereas the main tank volumes shown is closer to 1.8 to 1, which is the ratio for kerolox. Perhaps they meant kerolox using HTP for the turbo pumps.

Sounds plausible. Isn't that what Soyuz has used for decades?

For a Russian based team that sounds like a pretty good starting point for a vehicle if they have access to that expertise.

I really don't see anything in common with Soyuz, except for maybe the propellant combination.

This is more like a mini-Falcon 1.

[hop]

Turns out my guess was wrong, LN2 not H2O2

http://www.spacelin.ru/#!aldan/c99b  (google translate)

Tail section includes a tank of liquid nitrogen, and sustainer engines. LRE is based on the steering chambers of RD-108A, as the fuel system used PNA (Pneumopump aggregate). Pressurization tanks and power at the expense of the PNA gasification of liquid nitrogen.

I think this means a pump driven by boiling LN2.