The “agricultural aerospace superpower” has already buried the Russian space program
The head of Roscosmos Rogozin, answering questions from the host of Solovyov LIVE about the processes taking place in domestic and foreign cosmonautics, mentioned that recently in Ukraine, with bated breath, they have been monitoring the situation with the launches of new American spacecraft and predicting the complete defeat of Roscosmos in the competition with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Rogozin’s observation is confirmed by videos from the central UT channels closely monitoring the launch of Elon Musk’s new ship, Crew Dragon. This ship should soon replace the prematurely canceled Space Shuttle program and resume manned flights into space for Americans who have been flying on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for the last 9 years.
manned ship Crew Dragon
The delayed launch of Crew Dragon on May 27 forced the Ukrainian media to openly attack Roscosmos and highlight the successes of Elon Musk’s space company in every possible way.
Ukrainian “experts” claim that Roscosmos, taking advantage of its position as a monopolist in delivering crews to the ISS, constantly raises flight prices for Americans, forcing them to pay for the full launch of the Soyuz instead of one or two seats on the ship for Americans. The amount is even named: $90 million for the flight into orbit of a spacecraft with a crew on board.
Soon, embroidered experts say, Moscow’s freebies in space will come to an end, because the great and mighty Elon Musk will finally finish his miracle ship and begin to regularly plow the expanses of space, putting Roscosmos to shame.
Further, sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, the “non-brothers” predict the imminent end of the era of “Soviet space”. The trend, they say, is private astronautics - flexible, easy-going and nimble, like an electric broom - not like the ossified state one, which acts as a granite monument to itself.
The personification of new trends is the luminary of Elon Musk, who has surpassed even the Boeing Corporation in the field of multi-seat spacecraft. Boeing, they say, is not doing well with their own manned spacecraft, while in commercial launches the Falcon-9 launch vehicle is in the lead, having acquired the majority of commercial launches. “But in Raska, “Protons” fall with unenviable regularity.”
SpaceX Falcon rocket launch
Therefore, the shavar thinkers sum up, the USA won the space race, checkmate, cotton wool!
We will figure out what is true in this “analytics” and what is bullshit.
Let's start with the fact that everyone with brains understood: American flights to the ISS on Soyuz are a temporary measure and sooner or later NASA will come up with something of their own, fortunately the United States has money, resources, personnel and many years of experience in space flights .
Another thing is that commissioning a new manned spacecraft is a long-term task, and cavalry attacks in it do not lead to anything good. The United States is already the leader in human losses in space and therefore will test out “dragons” and other alternative projects until NASA, and not Elon Musk, makes sure that their new spacecraft are as safe as the Soviet/Russian Soyuz. . Therefore, one unmanned flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS will not be enough.
The stated price of $90 million for the Soyuz launch with dried dill is 2018% nonsense. According to official information from Roscosmos published in October 2.1, the commercial launch of the Soyuz 48,5 spacecraft with the Fregat upper stage costs significantly less - $35 million. And without Fregat - $20 million, which is about $30-XNUMX thousand per one kilogram of payload.
official Roscosmos prices for the Soyuz 2.1 rocket
As for Protons, the price for its launches fluctuated depending on market conditions from $100 to $65 million. Prices for Falcon-9 launches, according to official data, remain at $62 million, although experts talk about $55–$70 million in depending on customer requirements.
At the same time, Proton-M is no worse than Falcon-9, however, due to a chain of emergency launches, insurance rates for a Russian rocket are four times higher than insurance for an American rocket, which ultimately affects the customer’s choice.
At the Center. Khrunichev, where Protons are being designed, the engineers do not intend to rest on their laurels and are going to radically modernize the launch vehicle, releasing two cheaper options to the market: Proton Light and Proton Medium, reducing the price by 25%, to a more attractive $50 - 55 million, while simultaneously increasing the payload to that of the SpaceX carrier.
Proton-M and its successors
According to Roscosmos, this will be done by lengthening the tanks of the first and third stages and eliminating the second stage. The old Proton-M will remain in service until 2025.
Proton launch
It is also important that the Americans are trying to do everything to ensure that the money for commercial and military launches stays at home, despite the fact that the payment system for them is completely opaque, as evidenced by the results of the 2014 Parliamentary Accounting Chamber, obtained from an audit of the launches of secret satellites of the US Air Force .
Let’s not forget that Elon Musk is actively lobbying the US government and parliament for his interests, trying to push American rocketry away from using Russian engines, and astronautics away from Soyuz flights.
In addition, the “pro-Russian” President Trump, who always sides with the American military-industrial lobby, also spoke out against cooperation with Russia in the space industry.
Another competitor of Musk is ULA - United Launch Alliance, which receives almost a billion budget dollars annually for launches for the US government.
If you look at ULA’s prices for space launches, you won’t be spoiled for choice: the alliance takes three skins off the customer, and the prices are the same for any type of rocket – be it Delta IV, Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V.
So Musk, as well as the Pentagon behind him, are fighting primarily against the monopoly of the US Air Force, which charges $422 million for a single launch of anything, as opposed to the $83 and $96,5 million paid by SpaceX for launching two GPS satellites into orbit in 2017.
Thus, the US government and aerospace industry have almost completely closed the greedy commercial launch market, where a lot of money is circulating, to foreigners.
In Russia, things are somewhat different. The government cannot afford to spend $100 million on a rocket and its flight into space. We don’t print money like a crazy printer.
Of course, from all of the above it does not follow that Roscosmos has given up and capitulated to an American upstart that is up to its ears in state money and ready-made technologies.
In addition to the two Proton models, the development of the Angara modular rocket continues, capable of delivering light, medium and heavy payloads into orbit, depending on customer requirements.
heavy launch vehicle “Angara A5”
A multi-seat ship of the new type “Federation” with the ability to fly to the Moon and Mars is also in development. This means that the space race continues.
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