Russian Progress Center To Pick Design For Moon Mission Rocket No Earlier Than End Of 2021

Russian Progress Center to Pick Design for Moon Mission Rocket No Earlier Than End of 2021

SAMARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2021) The decision on the design of the super-heavy rocket for moon missions and its design should not be expected earlier than at the end of 2021, the general director of the Russian space rocket center Progress, Dmitry Baranov, said on Friday.

"We have prepared a preliminary design project of a super-heavy rocket. Perhaps, we will have several additional options with the technical project. But the variant in the design project is being considered as the main option. I think that the decision will be taken no earlier than by year end, just when the technical project ends," Baranov told reporters.

In December 2020, the director general of Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that Russia would be sending its first manned lunar missions by using several Angara rockets and not the Yenisei super heavy-lift launch vehicle.

According to him, it was premature to begin working on Yenisei before new technologies are developed. Angara rockets will be used for moon missions until 2032, although a decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin envisaged the launch of the first super-heavy rocket in 2028.

Rogozin also said that the new super-heavy rocket will be based on reusable technologies - such technologies are now being put into the promising Russian oxygen-methane rocket Amur-LNG.

In February 2021, Baranov said that the Yenisei project was being put on hold because the design was likely going to be updated within the next half a year or so.

In January 2021, the space council of the Russian academy of Sciences recommended postponing the creation of a super-heavy rocket.