MOSCOW. Jan 9 (Interfax-AVN) - A super-heavy space vehicle being developed in Russia should fly into space for the first time in 2028, Roscosmos has reported.
"The state corporation Roscosmos started developing a schematic design of a super-heavy-class space rocket system in 2018, and it will be completed in 2019. The start of the system's tests is expected in 2028," Roscosmos said on Saturday.
The work is being done in line with the president's decree "On the construction of a super-heavy-class space rocket system." To implement these plans, amendments have been made to Russia's state space exploration program for 2013-2020, a detailed schedule of its implementation in 2018-2020 has been endorsed, and the Russian Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 has been adjusted.
Roscosmos earlier endorsed a draft concept of a special federal program of the construction of a super-heavy space vehicle. The final versions of the system's technical image, the project's feasibility study, and the special federal program are to be submitted to the Russian leadership by the early 2019.
Technical solutions made during the development of the Soyuz-5 medium-class rocket should be employed in building the first stage of a super-heavy vehicle, and its third stage will be developed as part of the Angara-5V heavy-lift rocket project being pursued by the Khrunichev Center.
The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation is acting as the chief designer of the super-heavy space vehicle, and it should be launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, for which the relevant infrastructure should be built there.
The super-heavy vehicle in question is supposed to deliver payloads weighing up to 90 tonnes to low near-earth orbits or at least 20 tonnes to lunar orbits.
During the first phase of the project (2018-2019), a schematic design of a super-heavy space vehicle should be developed, its design image determined, and a technical and economic feasibility study carried out.
The second stage planned for 2020-2028 envisions research, experimental and design, survey, and construction and assembly works, it said.
Vladimir Solntsev, who headed Energia before August 2018, said earlier that the building of a launch pad for a super-heavy space vehicle at the Vostochny Cosmodrome could take about ten years.