The new Russian Soyuz 5 carrier rocket was successfully launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the first time on April 30, reported Vzglyad. “The first and second stages of the rocket performed as planned, and a mockup was launched onto the calculated suborbital trajectory, followed by a reentry into an area in the Pacific Ocean,” they reported.
“On April 30 at 21:00 Moscow time [18:00 GMT], the Soyuz-5 medium-class launch vehicle was launched from the 45th site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This is the first launch of the new-generation rocket as part of flight development tests,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
The Soyuz-5 is a fundamentally new rocket in the Soyuz family, which will provide the heavy lift required for the planned construction of the Russian Orbital Station. The rocket’s first stage is powered by the RD 171MV, the world’s most powerful liquid fuel engine, utilizing oxygen/naphthyl fuel. It has a payload capacity of launching up to 17 tons into low Earth orbit with high precision and lower per-launch cost.
“The current rocket has been significantly redesigned compared to its predecessors,” said Alexeey Anpilogov, president of the scientific support organization Osnovanie. For example, the first stage is equipped with RD-171MV engines, which are similar to those used on the Energia launch vehicle and the Zenit first stage. In other words, the Soyuz-5 is closer to the Zenit than to the Soyuz rockets in this regard,” the specialist explained. It was launched from the fully modernized Soviet era Zenit rocket launch pad which allows for fully automated pad preparation. It also has a unique engine emergency protection system that ensures safety even if a second-stage engine fails.
“Without a heavy launch vehicle, you can’t solve a very large number of tasks that require launching payloads over ten tons into low-Earth orbit,” Anpilogov said. “For example, launching a lunar station or a station to Mars or Venus with a Soyuz payload of about seven tons into low-Earth orbit is extremely difficult. Overall, if you have a launch vehicle like the Soyuz-5, you have the capability to launch orbital station modules. This means the project for a separate Russian orbital station is becoming a reality. In other words, Russia now has a workhorse that will allow the country to fully achieve space sovereignty,” he said. The rocket can be operated with or without a Fregat upper stage, and supports cluster launches and ISS secondary payloads. It will also serve as the base of the Yenisei super heavy-lift carrier rocker, still under development
The Soyuz-5 was also the result of the Baiterek project, which was initiated in close collaboration with Kazakhstan, which has thereby taken the first step to becoming a space-faring nation, according to Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov. In a statement released by the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of Kazakhstan, “The successful launch of the Baiterek rocket complex opens up new possibilities for space exploration, and the project’s implementation creates new jobs and expands the capabilities for launching a wide range of spacecraft into orbit.”
