Russian Super Rocket

I was lucky enough to help host a visit by two members of the Russian Space
program. They spent the day with 600 Norfolk school children. One of the
visitors was Alexander Martynov ex-head of Ballistics Department. He talked
about the Russian plans to mount a manned mission to Mars in 2025-2035. They
are planning to use a rocket called 'Energia' which will have a 200 TON
payload capacity. Later I aasked him for more detail but he said that he
could not give further details.
Does anyone else have an information about this rocket?
The idea of it is awe inspiring. A Saturn V could lift 118,000Kg to LEO
which I make 115 tons. Translunar capacity was 47,000kg = 46 tons. How big
will this thing be?

Rod Stevenson

Am Thu, 6 Nov 2003 20:22:46 +0000 (UTC) schrieb "Rod Stevenson":

[...]about the Russian plans to mount a manned mission to Mars in 2025-2035. They
are planning to use a rocket called 'Energia' which will have a 200 TON
payload capacity. Later I aasked him for more detail but he said that he
could not give further details.

Energia is "old news", because that is the launcher being used to lift
the Russian Buran shuttle and the Poljus military payload.

Does anyone else have an information about this rocket?
The idea of it is awe inspiring. A Saturn V could lift 118,000Kg to LEO
which I make 115 tons. Translunar capacity was 47,000kg = 46 tons. How big
will this thing be?

The Energia is (was) comparable in size to the American Shuttle stack,
and it shares some constructive details (and differs in some others).
Basically, it has an expendable LOX/LH2 core stage that is augmented
by four strong parallel-staged LOX/Kerosene boosters based on Zenit's
1st. stages, that were planned to be reusable.

Its payload capacity is said to be around a bit more than 100 metric
tons to LEO, so it is at around the same capacity as the Saturn V. If
there WAS an appropriate (at this time not existing) TLI stage, its
translunar capacity would be in the same range as the Saturn-V's, too.

And there are some possibilities for uprating and diversification to a
whole launcher family. At the "lower" end is the Energia-M (downscaled
core stage and only two booster stages); at he "upper" end of scale
are the Uran and Hercules, with six resp. eight booster stages and
large upper stages like mentioned above. And especially the two larger
models have LEO capacities in the =200 ton range.

But unfortunately the Energija launcher family is dead and is doomed
to be never revived and most of its members never born. Only the
Energia in 4-booster configuration has been flown, all other family
members exist only on paper and as models.

And so the only components of the Energia program in use today are the
Zenit and its engine family. This engine family is used in Zenit
(RD170), the American(!) Atlas-V (RD-180), and maybe somewhen Angara
(RD-191).

Oh, what would I like to see manned launches on Zenit based boosters,
they could be a modern successor of the Semjorka family. Maybe the
Americans will try that somewhen?



cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
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"Rod Stevenson" wrote:
I was lucky enough to help host a visit by two members of the Russian Space
program. They spent the day with 600 Norfolk school children. One of the
visitors was Alexander Martynov ex-head of Ballistics Department. He talked
about the Russian plans to mount a manned mission to Mars in 2025-2035. They
are planning to use a rocket called 'Energia' which will have a 200 TON
payload capacity. Later I aasked him for more detail but he said that he
could not give further details.

He can't give any details, because there is no such rocket as Energia.
There was, but it's a long dead program.

D.
--
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discussion.

Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker wrote in message ...

Oh, what would I like to see manned launches on Zenit based boosters,
they could be a modern successor of the Semjorka family. Maybe the
Americans will try that somewhen?


It's not a Zenit booster, but Lockheed Martin will probably
compete RD-180-powered Atlas V for launching NASA's crew
rescue/transport vehicles, if such things are ever built.
If Atlas V wins, the engine originally developed for the
Energia super-booster could finally be used to launch humans
into space (in derived form).

- Ed Kyle

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker wrote in message
...

Oh, what would I like to see manned launches on Zenit based boosters,
they could be a modern successor of the Semjorka family. Maybe the
Americans will try that somewhen?

It's not a Zenit booster, but Lockheed Martin will probably
compete RD-180-powered Atlas V for launching NASA's crew
rescue/transport vehicles, if such things are ever built.
If Atlas V wins, the engine originally developed for the
Energia super-booster could finally be used to launch humans
into space (in derived form).

- Ed Kyle

Actually, I was impressed with the Atlas III and the retrofit into an Atlas
II core.
Quite a different launch that the Atlas IIAS ... and a nice performance kick
with a Centaur

GB

Am 7 Nov 2003 18:58:49 -0800 schrieb "ed kyle":

Oh, what would I like to see manned launches on Zenit based boosters,
they could be a modern successor of the Semjorka family. Maybe the
Americans will try that somewhen?
It's not a Zenit booster, but Lockheed Martin will probably
compete RD-180-powered Atlas V for launching NASA's crew
rescue/transport vehicles, if such things are ever built.
If Atlas V wins, the engine originally developed for the
Energia super-booster could finally be used to launch humans
into space (in derived form).

Yes, I know, that it is "planned" to use the Atlas-V for that purpose.
But I think, atlas-V is in a liftoff thrust range (and so payload
capacity class, too), that is not sufficient for the wished purpose,
unless you use the heavy configuration with three core stages. And
that is expensive.

It's a pity, that that marvellous engine (RD-170), that basically _is
already_ made to be reusable, is "castrated" to RD-180 by reducing its
number of thrust chambers from four to two (and so increasing its burn
time using a given tankage volume and structure size) - in effect that
the 1st.stage's burnout position above ground is in a height, where a
successful retrieval and possible reuse is not more easy to achieve.

Imho, to use simply the Zenit seems to forbid itself for American
manned use by being a bit "too Russian". F... politics. :-X

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
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Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker wrote:


It's a pity, that that marvellous engine (RD-170), that basically _is
already_ made to be reusable,

IIRC in the case of Energia, the recovery equipment for the strap-ons
weighed so much that it reduced the vehicle's orbital payload to almost
nothing; so it was never installed on the first two flights.

is "castrated" to RD-180 by reducing its
number of thrust chambers from four to two (and so increasing its burn
time using a given tankage volume and structure size) - in effect that
the 1st.stage's burnout position above ground is in a height, where a
successful retrieval and possible reuse is not more easy to achieve.

Imho, to use simply the Zenit seems to forbid itself for American
manned use by being a bit "too Russian". F... politics. :-X

It will be interesting to see if Sea Launch's Zenits become a contender
for the OSP requirement; since the vehicle was designed to be man-rated
from the beginning.

Pat

Wasnt Energya the booster for the russian space shuttle?
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Rod Stevenson" wrote:
I was lucky enough to help host a visit by two members of the Russian
Space
program. They spent the day with 600 Norfolk school children. One of the
visitors was Alexander Martynov ex-head of Ballistics Department. He
talked
about the Russian plans to mount a manned mission to Mars in 2025-2035.
They
are planning to use a rocket called 'Energia' which will have a 200 TON
payload capacity. Later I aasked him for more detail but he said that he
could not give further details.

He can't give any details, because there is no such rocket as Energia.
There was, but it's a long dead program.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Am Sat, 08 Nov 2003 04:37:49 -0600 schrieb "Pat Flannery":
IIRC in the case of Energia, the recovery equipment for the strap-ons
weighed so much that it reduced the vehicle's orbital payload to almost
nothing; so it was never installed on the first two flights.

As my info is, the recovery equipment was in fact not installed,
because it was not planned to recover the first couple of boosters for
simplification of operation, but similar weight ballast was added to
maintain center of gravity, etc.

Imho, to use simply the Zenit seems to forbid itself for American
manned use by being a bit "too Russian". F... politics. :-X

It will be interesting to see if Sea Launch's Zenits become a contender
for the OSP requirement; since the vehicle was designed to be man-rated
from the beginning.

I honestly hope so, but I think there is NOT MUCH REAL hope that the
best design will win because it is Ukrainian stuff...

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
\ /
http://zili.de X No HTML in
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Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker wrote:

As my info is, the recovery equipment was in fact not installed,
because it was not planned to recover the first couple of boosters for
simplification of operation, but similar weight ballast was added to
maintain center of gravity, etc.

The problem in regards to a recoverable Zenit first stage would be that
the recovery equipment design would have to be changed from that used on
Energia- there it was all hung on one side of the booster, which
wouldn't work for both aerodynamic as well as center of balance reasons
on a Zenit stage; still, on the upside, water splashdown would probably
be more benign than landing on hard ground, as the Energia boosters were
intended to do.

Pat