Russia starts ambitious super-heavy space rocket project

Russia starts ambitious super-heavy space rocket project

On the 25th anniversary of the historic flight of the Soviet space shuttle Buran, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency has formed a working group to prepare “within weeks” a roadmap for the revival of the Energia super-heavy booster rocket.

  The group led by Oleg Ostapenko, the new head of Roscosmos  Federal Space Agency, is set to draw up proposals on the design  of a super-heavy launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 100  tonnes of payload to the baseline orbit, former Soviet minister  of general machine building, Oleg Baklanov, said on Friday.  
  “You have assumed the responsibility and dared to head the  group, which is supposed to find an answer to the question how we  can regain the position we demonstrated to the world with the  launch of a 100-tonne spacecraft [Buran in 1988] within a few  weeks,” the ex-minister told Ostapenko at the event dedicated  to the 25th anniversary of the flight of the Buran shuttle  spacecraft.    
  The new carrier rocket Angara is set to become the base for the  ambitious project that could bring Russia back to its heyday of  space exploration. It could be launched from the Vostochny  Cosmodrome which is now being constructed in Russia’s Far East,  and will replace Kazakhstan’s Baikonur as Russia’s main  launchpad.