Russia's Federation spacecraft 3.5 times cheaper than NASA’s SpaceX Dragon

[C130]

https://www.rt.com/news/329949-federation-spacecraft-cheaper-dragon/

Russia intends to spend three and a half times less than NASA on a new-generation manned spacecraft designed to replace the Soyuz family. The craft will rival the Dragon 2 being developed by America’s SpaceX corporation.
According to the new budget being requested by Roscosmos from the Russian government, the construction of the “Federation” reusable piloted spacecraft will cost 58 billion rubles (US$734 million) over the next six years.

The sum requested is 3.5 times less than what NASA is spending to develop its SpaceX Dragon 2 delivery vehicle, which was allocated $2.6 billion in 2014. In fact, the new research and development budget runs 8 billion rubles ($101 million) less than was planned last year.

Federation - formerly known as the Prospective Piloted Transport System ( PPTS ) - is expected to be completed in 2021. Its first launches to the International Space Station (ISS) in both manned and unmanned modes are scheduled for 2023.

Federation is currently being developed by Energiya Rocket and Space Corporation and is designed to tow both humans and cargoes to the Moon and low orbit. An Angara-A5V heavy-class rocket will be used to deliver the new spacecraft into orbit. Once completed, the spacecraft will have a crew of up to four people and will be able to operate autonomously for up to 30 days. It can be deployed to the ISS for up to one year.

In requesting the new budget under the draft Federal Space Program until 2025, Roscosmos also envisions that the spacecraft will be capable of reaching the Moon in 2024-2025, while the first actual flight to the Moon is planned after 2025.

Roscosmos hopes the new budget will be approved by the government by March this year.

 

[C130]

I don't know how to feel about this is this propaganda? or is Russia scared of SpaceX


fact is SpaceX is blowing away everyone in the field of space travel right now. while Russia and everyone else is going to continue to use non-reusable rockets to get into space...SpaceX is pioneering reusable rockets and making getting into space more affordable for EVERYONE


Dragon V2, with it's 7 seats should also draw the attention of countries who want to send their nationals up to the ISS on the cheap $20 million per person, compared to Russia's current Soyuz with 3 seats $40 to $70 million per person.

I look forward to the day when a Falcon 9 with a Dragon V2 is taking up American,Japanese,European,Pakistani, and India astronauts.

so be afraid Russia be very very afraid

 

[Beast]

I don't know how to feel about this is this propaganda? or is Russia scared of SpaceX


fact is SpaceX is blowing away everyone in the field of space travel right now. while Russia and everyone else is going to continue to use non-reusable rockets to get into space...SpaceX is pioneering reusable rockets and making getting into space more affordable for EVERYONE


Dragon V2, with it's 7 seats should also draw the attention of countries who want to send their nationals up to the ISS on the cheap $20 million per person, compared to Russia's current Soyuz with 3 seats $40 to $70 million per person.

I look forward to the day when a Falcon 9 with a Dragon V2 is taking up American,Japanese,European,Pakistani, and India astronauts.

so be afraid Russia be very very afraid

By 2020, ISS will cease to exist due to lack of funding and it will be CSS. Your falcon 9 will be useless cos US space craft will be forbidden to CSS due to security reason.

 

[C130]

By 2020, ISS will cease to exist due to lack of funding and it will be CSS. Your falcon 9 will be useless cos US space craft will be forbidden to CSS due to security reason.

yawn, not a fan of low orbit space stations. it's time to move on from low orbit and get back to the Moon, and visit asteroids, and Mars.


the game changer is reusable rockets and getting regular Joes into space

 

[Audio]

I don't know how to feel about this is this propaganda? or is Russia scared of SpaceX

Roscosmos doesn't have the unfortunate circumstance of having to finance a non profitable auto division, so they can do with less.

By 2020, ISS will cease to exist due to lack of funding and it will be CSS.

ISS has funding up to 2024 or 2025.

 

[jamahir]

fact is SpaceX is blowing away everyone in the field of space travel right now. while Russia and everyone else is going to continue to use non-reusable rockets to get into space...SpaceX is pioneering reusable rockets and making getting into space more affordable for EVERYONE

Dragon V2, with it's 7 seats should also draw the attention of countries who want to send their nationals up to the ISS on the cheap $20 million per person, compared to Russia's current Soyuz with 3 seats $40 to $70 million per person.

i believe even dragon v1 was begun with the idea of having 7 cosmonauts one day.

and yes, the simplified, spacious and powered-landing dragon v2 will be quite ahead than the cramped and three-passenger/crew soyuz.

and it was a mistake for roskosmos to increase seat price from 20 million.

in terms of reusable rockets, "blue origin" is ahead of spacex as of now... i read somewhere that the "blue origin - new shepherd" rocket is comparable to the reusable falcon 9 v1.1 first stage ( grasshopper )... also, i find "new shepherd" rocket better-looking than falcon 9.

I look forward to the day when a Falcon 9 with a Dragon V2 is taking up American,Japanese,European,Pakistani, and India astronauts.

so be afraid Russia be very very afraid

maybe by the time falcon 9 v1.1 + dragon v2 is carrying people ( late 2017?? ), russia will have announced a simplified, powered-descent and expanded soyuz.

By 2020, ISS will cease to exist due to lack of funding and it will be CSS. Your falcon 9 will be useless cos US space craft will be forbidden to CSS due to security reason.

1. so where will russia go?? do you think their own space station project will be built within four years??

2. will the chinese space station be expanded by 2020 to have six people or even more??

3. will the chinese space station invite old and new east/south bloc countries ( venezeula, pakistan, syria etc ) ??

yawn, not a fan of low orbit space stations. it's time to move on from low orbit and get back to the Moon, and visit asteroids, and Mars.

earth's moon is boring... if the two moons of mars are targeted by 2020/2022, it will not only serve to learn about long-distance space travel but also on building habitats on non-atmosphere worlds perhaps using local materials ( isru ).

forgot this - if more living modules are added to iss ( maybe the inflatable space stations of bigelow ), the iss can serve as a building yard for in-orbit assembling of mars spacecraft whose modules are launched from earth.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

i believe even dragon v1 was begun with the idea of having 7 cosmonauts one day.

and yes, the simplified, spacious and powered-landing dragon v2 will be quite ahead than the cramped and three-passenger/crew soyuz.



maybe by the time falcon 9 v1.1 + dragon v2 is carrying people ( late 2017?? ), russia will have announced a simplified, powered-descent and expanded soyuz.

SpaceX way ahead of others

Just 4 days ago...

Edit

 

[jamahir]

SpaceX way ahead of others

Just 4 days ago...

thanks for the vid and i see from the title of the vid ( i am running pdf with javascript disabled ), the vid is about dragon v2 testing its superdraco descent/escape engines, but regrettably i cannot watch vids presently because my monthly download limit is almost at the end and i will replenish my subscription only within three or four days... will watch the vid then as i am saving the download limit bytes for making posts.

and i get your point - spacex human program is progressing steadily,

but wasn't spacex building a "astronauts corps"?? what is the status??

 

[Deltaviper]

I don't know how to feel about this is this propaganda? or is Russia scared of SpaceX


fact is SpaceX is blowing away everyone in the field of space travel right now. while Russia and everyone else is going to continue to use non-reusable rockets to get into space...SpaceX is pioneering reusable rockets and making getting into space more affordable for EVERYONE


Dragon V2, with it's 7 seats should also draw the attention of countries who want to send their nationals up to the ISS on the cheap $20 million per person, compared to Russia's current Soyuz with 3 seats $40 to $70 million per person.

I look forward to the day when a Falcon 9 with a Dragon V2 is taking up American,Japanese,European,Pakistani, and India astronauts.

so be afraid Russia be very very afraid

Of-course Dragon V2 is the cooler and superior platform, more people and cargo. However, that's not the end of it. What Musk wants is to continue increasing the crew size, plus the rocket size.They're already planning for falcon X and its heavy versions. With the goal of ultimately being able to transport "Significant" number of people to Mars. If space X keep's working (successfully) at this rate, they'd pretty soon beat anything any government agency has to offer... Re-using rockets is probably going to be the norm the world over in a decade or two though. Just can't afford throwing em away every time a launch happens.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Of-course Dragon V2 is the cooler and superior platform, more people and cargo. However, that's not the end of it. What Musk wants is to continue increasing the crew size, plus the rocket size.They're already planning for falcon X and its heavy versions. With the goal of ultimately being able to transport "Significant" number of people to Mars. If space X keep's working (successfully) at this rate, they'd pretty soon beat anything any government agency has to offer... Re-using rockets is probably going to be the norm the world over in a decade or two though. Just can't afford throwing em away every time a launch happens.

100 people. Design will be announced later this year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Colonial_Transporter

Obviously the rocket will be huge.

 

[jamahir]

100 people.

one-way trip??

Edit
View attachment 289528

thanks for the pic.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

one-way trip??



thanks for the pic.

I think they are going to use methane which is available on Mars. The rocket itself wouldn't carry the return fuel.

 

[jamahir]

I think they are going to use methane which is available on Mars. The rocket itself wouldn't carry the return fuel.

i am assuming that the 100 people for the spacex mars plan through the "mars colonial transporter" will be a one-way trip intended for setting up a initial colony.

about methane on mars[1] for other readers...

A relatively large amount of methane has been found in the atmosphere of Mars. This unexpected find occurs at a rate of 30 ppb. The methane occurs in large plumes in different areas of the planet, which suggests that it was released in those general areas. Data seems to suggest that there are two main sources for the methane: one appears to be centered near 30° N, 260° W, with the second near 0°, 310° W. It is estimated that Mars produces 270 ton/year of methane. Under the conditions on Mars, methane breaks down as quickly as 6 months(Earth time). In order for the methane to exist in the detected quantities, there must be a very active source under the surface. Volcanic activity, comet impacts, and serpentinization are the most probable causes. Methanogenic microbial life is a very remote alternative source.

and yeah, the liquid-methane/liquid-oxygen fueled "raptor" engine seems destined for use in the "mars colonial transporter", both in the earth launch vehicle and the space vehicle[2] and the engine design is of a higher efficiency general design type called "staged combustion"[3] usable in rockets that use two propellents ( lh/lox, kerosene/lox, l'ch4/lox etc )...

The staged combustion cycle, also called topping cycle or preburner cycle,[1] is a thermodynamic cycle used in some bipropellant rocket engines. In staged combustion, one propellant is sent through a preburner and partially burned using a small portion of the second propellant. The resulting hot gas is used to power the engine's turbines and pumps, then injected into the main combustion chamber along with the remainder of the second propellant to complete combustion. There are two main variants of the cycle depending on which propellant is sent through the preburner: oxidizer-rich staged combustion (ORSC) and fuel-rich staged combustion (FRSC).

The advantage of staged, or "closed", combustion is that all of the cycle's gases and heat go through the combustion chamber. (An alternative design, called the gas-generator cycle, is an "open" cycle where the gas used to drive the turbopumps is exhausted overboard without passing through the main combustion chamber, reducing efficiency.) Since no propellant is dumped overboard, staged combustion allows for high power turbopumps which permit very high chamber pressures, allowing the use of high expansion ratio nozzles at low altitude for better performance. Disadvantages of staged combustion include harsh turbine conditions, exotic plumbing to carry the hot gases, and complicated feedback and control. In particular, ORSC requires advanced metallurgy due to extremely corrosive oxidizer-rich gas, while FRSC requires use of a fuel that will not coke, such as liquid hydrogen.

i have some thoughts on this.

1. methane seems quite useful for spacecraft operations[4]...

Methane has the benefit of being easier to store than hydrogen. Mostly passive cooling can suffice to keep it cryogenic, whereas hydrogen needs active cooling, and will still vent over time. Which makes Methane much closer to 'storable' than hydrogen can be. This would make it useful for deep space missions, with long mission durations.

Methane is less bulky than hydrogen. Which means tankage is smaller for the same mission. (The Shuttle external tank is mostly hydrogen tanks with a small oxygen tank (at the top?)).

Methane should be simpler to use in an engine due to its higher density than hydrogen, less needs to be pumped by volume.

Methane is potentially manufacturable on Mars. With imported Hydrogen (or native water), CO2 (Carbon dioxide) can be converted to CH4 reasonably straight forwardly.

There are ideas for ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization) and demonstrations on Mars. (Robert Zubrin's model is launch the return vehicle that uses ISRU to fill its fuel tanks, and do not launch the manned mission until the return vehicle is fully fueled and ready to go. Then you launch the manned mission, along with a second return vehicle, that uses ISRU over the duration of the surface mission to fuel itself).

SpaceX is focused on developing re-usability technology for their rocket lines. Traditional rocket-grade kerosene produces residue (a process known as "coking") when it burns. Methane fuel burns cleaner so there is no residue build-up which means engines can be re-used more times without refurbishment.

share improve this answer

edited Oct 31 '14 at 13:52
Community♦
1

answered Dec 18 '13 at 20:34
geoffc
28k460156

2. and liquid methane has another use as well, as said by the spacex page on reddit[5]...

A lot of people talk about using water as radiation shielding, but it occoured to me that there is another hydrogen rich liquid that's being bought along anyway. Methane is 25.1% hydrogen by mass compared to waters 11.2% so by mass liquid methane is actually a better radiation sheild material than water. Liquid methane is only 42% as dense as water so it has almost as much hydrogen by volume. Spacex's plan also calls for hydrogen gell for the production of methane on the martian surface, which could also be used. Are there any other ways of shielding the crew from radiation?

3. but i was wondering if instead of using methane as the all-round fuel for the mars launch and journey, methane is used for the earth launch but for in-space travel the revolutionary electric/plasma engine, vasimr[6], is used... i have been on/off following vasimr's development for some years...

NASA has awarded a grant of USD10 million to a Texas-based company to develop a revolutionary engine that could send humans to Mars in just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket company from Webster will develop the Vasimr engine which uses plasma, an electrically charged gas, as a propellant.

"This is like no other rocket that you may have seen in the past. It is a plasma rocket. The Vasimr rocket is not used for launching things. It is used for things already there, which we call 'in space propulsion,'" said the company's CEO, Franklin Chang-Diaz, who is a former astronaut and flew on seven space shuttle missions. The Vasimr engine works by heating plasma to extreme temperatures using radio waves. Strong magnetic fields then funnel this plasma out of the back of the engine. This in turn creates thrust, helping to propel the engine at extreme speeds.

Over a three-year period, NASA will give the company in the region of USD 10 million to enable the engine to fly in space, 'rt.com' reported. This will be achieved with a demonstration of their new prototype, the VX-200-SS, which will be able to fire continuously for more than 100 hours. NASA will then consider employing the propulsion system on future excursions to Mars. The company is also thinking about other projects for its Vasimr engine, such as asteroid retrieval, which would bring the space rocks closer to Earth, allowing them to be mined.

visit the company website for a simplified explanation about how vasimr works.

4. also, i was wondering if the raptor engine instead of using liquid-methane/liquid-oxygen directly, uses liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen but the liquid hydrogen is obtained from some real-time conversion of liquid methane to liquid hydrogen, there wouldn't be any need of developing a new methane engine... a computer programmer's solution.
​

and, i like how spacex avoids usage of complicated radiation-hardened triple-gate microprocessors[7]... this is i think also applicable to dragon...

Engine control

SpaceX uses a dual-redundant design in the Merlin flight computers. The system uses three computers in each processing unit, each constantly checking on the others, to instantiate a fault-tolerant design. One processing unit is part of each of the ten Merlin engines (nine on first stage, one on second stage) used on a Falcon 9 launch

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@Levina


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[1] http://www.universetoday.com/22587/atmosphere-of-mars/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle_(rocket)

[4] http://space.stackexchange.com/ques...hane-as-fuel-for-their-next-engine-the-raptor

[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2tps6d/alternative_radiation_shielding/

[6] http://www.deccanchronicle.com/1504...ed-vasimr-engine-may-take-humans-mars-39-days

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)

 

[Levina]

while Russia and everyone else is going to continue to use non-reusable rockets to get into space...SpaceX is pioneering reusable rockets and making getting into space more affordable for EVERYONE

Well, India already tested reusable Launch vehicle last year.

 

[jamahir]

Well, India already tested reusable Launch vehicle last year.

are you referring to the capsule ( "crew module" ) test article that isro launched[1] in 2014??

The rocket carried a 3,775-kilogram unmanned crew module built by Indian industry. The module, designed to accommodate three astronauts, separated from the rocket at an altitude of 127 kilometers and, after being slowed by parachutes, splashed down in the Bay of Bengal.

well, the capsule certainly is reusable ( i don't know for how many times ) but it will be launched on top of a expendable rocket.

however, a completely reusable space system from isro is the "avatar"[2] space-plane and it is still in initial engineering... it is a bigger project, at first a uncrewed vehicle but with more development will come the crewed version...

Avatar (Sanskrit: अवतार) (from "Aerobic Vehicle for Transatmospheric Hypersonic Aerospace TrAnspoRtation") is a concept for a unmanned single-stage reusable spaceplane capable of horizontal takeoff and landing, by India's Defence Research and Development Organization along with Indian Space Research Organization and other research institutions. The mission concept is for low cost military and commercial satellite space launches.

Avatar is projected to weigh 25 tons, of which 60% of that mass would be liquid hydrogen fuel. The oxygen required by the vehicle for combustion in outer space would be collected from the atmosphere during takeoff, thus reducing the need to carry oxygen during launch. The notional specification is for a payload weighing up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) to low Earth orbit and to withstand up to 100 launches and reentries.

If built, Avatar would takeoff horizontally like a conventional airplane from a conventional airstrip using turbo-ramjet engines that burn hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen. Once at a cruising altitude, the vehicle would use scramjet propulsion to accelerate from Mach 4 to Mach 8. During this cruising phase, an on-board system would collect air from the atmosphere, from which liquid oxygen would be separated and stored. The liquid oxygen collected would then be used to burn the stored hydrogen in the final flight phase to attain orbit. The vehicle would be designed to permit at least one hundred launches and atmospheric reentries.

the hypersonic-capable "avatar" prototype on the right, i think... image from isro page[3].

the "avatar" is similar to the yet unrealized "skylon" space-plane[4] from the british company "reaction engines" and the in-development "lynx"[5] from the american company "xcor"... avatar, lynx and skylon have a superior and simplified approach as against the other earth-orbit systems that use rocket+capsule or rocket+space-plane or carrier-plane+space-plane whose examples are in use or were in use or being tested or in development - soyuz, nasa space shuttle, falcon9/dragon, shenzhou, "new shepherd", white-knight-two/spaceshiptwo, dream-chaser+atlas-v etc.

below is the very slow progress[2] of isro's "avatar"...

In January 2012, it was announced that a scaled prototype, called 'Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator' (RLV-TD), was approved to be built and tested. The vehicle is undergoing flight integration at the VSSC before being moved to Bengaluru for acoustic testing and later to Sriharikota for the launch expected to take place in April 2016. The first orbital flight is proposed for 2025.

Scaled-down tests

Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle being developed by Defence Research and Development Organization to demonstrate scram-jet technology.

The aerodynamics characterization of the RLV-TD prototype was done by National Aerospace Laboratories in India. The RLV-TD is in the last stages of construction.

By May 2015, engineers at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station were installing thermal tiles on the outer surface of the 'RLV-TD', so it can withstand the intense heat during atmospheric reentry. This prototype weighs around 1.5 tonnes and would fly up to an altitude of 70 km. ISRO has tentatively slated the prototype's test flight from the first launchpad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre for February 2016. The RLV-TD will be mounted on top of a two stage Rohini sounding rocket rocket and launched beyond the atmosphere, after which the RLV-TD will separate and reenter the atmosphere while traveling through the hypersonic regime.[8] The rocket is expendable while the RLV would glide back to Earth and fall in Bay of Bengal as there are no airstrips that are 5 km long at desired location that could be used to land such aircraft. ISRO has made detailed reports to construct an airstrip greater than 4 km long in the Sriharikota island and it will be built in near future.

In 2006 Indian Space Research Organisation in a series of ground tests demonstrated a stable supersonic combustion for nearly 7 seconds with an inlet Mach number of 6. A flight test of scram-jet engine is planned in second demonstration flight(ATV-D02) of "Advanced Technology Vehicle" that has a diameter of 0.56 m and a length of ~10 m and take off mass of ~3 tonnes in 2016.

sadly, at present isro's efforts into "avatar" and the human space program are not 100 percent... isro's obsession with satellite launches is the diversion... what isro must do is, (a). stop all production of its pslv medium-class rockets, (b). stop research for its new medium class gslv rockets, (c). handover any satellite produced to foreign launches entirely ( ariane, roskosmos, even spacex )... this will get isro's efforts more into the "avatar" space-plane and the remainder of the human space program.

and @django @haviZsultan @Zibago - what if isro and pakistan's suparco join effort on "avatar"??

lastly, i wonder if spacex will be bypassed by companies like xcor at least for earth orbit launches.


---

[1] http://www.space.com/28114-india-space-capsule-test-flight.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(spacecraft)

[3] http://www.isro.gov.in/technology-d...hicle-technology-demonstration-program-rlv-td

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

[5] http://aerospace.xcor.com/reusable-launch-vehicles/lynx-spacecraft/