The Soyuz U2 vehicle (the one that used Sintin) did have slightly higher
performance than the standard Soyuz-U, but this performance gap was erased
with the introduction of the Soyuz-FG, which uses higher performance engines
in the first and second stages. The next version of Soyuz will use a better
third stage engine, and replace the analog flight computer with a digital
system, and so will have significantly better performance.


"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message
...
hop wrote:
Incidently, the Soyouz 2B gives an extra 1000kg to LEO from Baikonur,
which should be plenty for extra heat sheild that the seemingly
implausible CSI http://www.constellationservices.com/ plan would
require. Hmmm...

I was under the impression that the Soyuz had lower
performance now than it used to, as the Soviets used
to use Sintin rather than stock Kerosene. The
Russians ran out of money to keep Sintin production
running sometime in the mid '90s.