MRKS-1 Reusable Space Rocket System Discussion

[MattMason]

Thread to discuss and consolidate all detail about the MRKS-1 winged booster.

SputnikNews made an older 2015 report on the booster concept, which is (still?) set for financing between 2021 and 2025.

Passing discussion about MRKS-1 is available in a few threads:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32161.msg1064511#msg1064511
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31049.msg1419094#msg1419094
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26995.msg1041117#msg1041117

[The Amazing Catstronaut]

It's certainly a beautiful design, but is it an optimal one? It looks suspiciously Buran-esque in its shapeform. Certainly there's some room for shaving drag down.

[savuporo]

Baikal and MRKS-1 side by side in one magazine ..

BTW, according to this the picture above is not 'MRKS'.

http://izvestia.ru/news/590165

ОКР «ЛЭК-ВРБ» нельзя назвать прямым наследником МРКС, но это наследник по сути, — пояснили в пресс-службе «Хруничева».

And, FKP defunded the entire initiative:
http://izvestia.ru/news/602031

[TrevorMonty]

The ISRO RLV and SpaceXs progress may give the Russian project a boost. Nothing like competition.

[MattMason]

Baikal and MRKS-1 side by side in one magazine ..

BTW, according to this the picture above is not 'MRKS'.

http://izvestia.ru/news/590165

ОКР «ЛЭК-ВРБ» нельзя назвать прямым наследником МРКС, но это наследник по сути, — пояснили в пресс-службе «Хруничева».

And, FKP defunded the entire initiative:
http://izvestia.ru/news/602031

The latter two photos seem to collectively make "MRKS" a system of reusable technologies. So, the SputnikNews photo is only part of the proposed program.

[savuporo]

The ISRO RLV and SpaceXs progress may give the Russian project a boost. Nothing like competition.

Actually the opposite seems to have happened. FKP erased the funding for all reusable concepts.

And i was wrong, the pic above was МРКС research model
http://www.tsagi.ru/pressroom/news/735/

[MattMason]

The ISRO RLV and SpaceXs progress may give the Russian project a boost. Nothing like competition.

Even if the project is defunded at present (can't click foreign links right now), inevitably, the age of reusability has to creep into everyone's space program in some capacity (even if you're just getting back the engines) if they stand a chance of challenging proposed pricing of American competitors. Inertia is a terrible force not only for launch vehicles to fight, but harder to withstand by engineers from budgets and politicos, too.

But, those reusable initiatives are operational but still experimental for one provider, limited to suborbital flights for another, and only proposed for all other commercial and non-NASA governmental launch providers. There's still plenty of time to raise their foal(s) and train it to enter this new horse race.

[baldusi]

If SpaceX reusability actually plays out, they could cluster Soyuz-5 upper stage engine (RD-0169?) in the first stage and actually land on their drop zones. They can thus react very fast if the need arises.

[fregate]

The ISRO RLV and SpaceXs progress may give the Russian project a boost. Nothing like competition.

Even if the project is defunded at present (can't click foreign links right now), inevitably, the age of reusability has to creep into everyone's space program in some capacity (even if you're just getting back the engines) if they stand a chance of challenging proposed pricing of American competitors. Inertia is a terrible force not only for launch vehicles to fight, but harder to withstand by engineers from budgets and politicos, too.But, those reusable initiatives are operational but still experimental for one provider, limited to suborbital flights for another, and only proposed for all other commercial and non-NASA governmental launch providers. There's still plenty of time to raise their foal(s) and train it to enter this new horse race.

[B. Hendrickx]

http://izvestia.ru/news/619896

Izvestiya quotes Roskosmos launch vehicle program manager Aleksandr Medvedev as saying that  Khrunichev is resuming work on a launch vehicle with a winged flyback booster. The department for reusable launch systems at Khrunichev has been reinstated and will be headed by Pavel Lekhov, a veteran of the Energiya-Buran program. Medvedev says that 15 years after Khrunichev proposed the Baikal concept, it is time to move "from paper to reality" and build a "flight demonstrator" of a winged reusable flyback stage. "Concrete proposals have been prepared, but it is too early to talk about them in detail", he added.