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Space The Almighty Buck

Russia's Proton Rocket, Which Predates Apollo, Will Finally Stop Flying (arstechnica.com) 83

Posted by BeauHD from the technical-difficulties dept.
The Russian-manufactured Proton rocket that has been traveling into space since before humans landed on the Moon will finally stop flying. "In an interview with a Russian publication, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said production of the Proton booster will cease as production shifts to the new Angara booster," reports Ars Technica. "No new Proton contracts are likely to be signed." From the report: First launched in 1965, the rocket was initially conceived of as a booster to fly two-person crews around the Moon, as the Soviet Union sought to beat NASA into deep space. Indeed, some of its earliest missions launched creatures, including two turtles, to the Moon and back. The decision will bring down the curtain on one of the longest-used and most versatile rockets in world history. As the United States developed the space shuttle in the 1970s and began flying it in the 1980s, the Russian space agency saw the opportunity to commercialize the Proton rocket, and by the end of the 1990s, the booster became a major moneymaker for the Russian space industry. With a capacity of 22.8 tons to low-Earth orbit, it became a dominant player in the commercial market for heavier satellites. An increasing rate of failures, combined with the rise of SpaceX's cheaper Falcon 9 rockets, "have caused the number of Proton launches in a given year to dwindle from eight or so to just one or two," adds Ars. "This shrinking market has opened the door to the Angara rocket, which has the advantage of not using environmentally hazardous fuel for each of its stages..."
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Russia's Proton Rocket, Which Predates Apollo, Will Finally Stop Flying More

Russia's Proton Rocket, Which Predates Apollo, Will Finally Stop Flying

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  • With so many years flying even BSD canâ(TM)t match that kind of up-time!

  • Soyuz (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @03:51AM (#56846456) Homepage

    Russia's Soyuz Rocket, Which Predates anything else, simply continues Flying

    it's basically the rocket that launched the very fist satellite into orbite, just with more stages.

    • It was also the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

    • Re:Soyuz (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @09:51AM (#56847336)

      I'm wondering when Soyuz will end. It's a horribly inefficient design by modern standards, even with the updates they've been doing. No insult to Korolyov, it was a great rocket for its time... but it's time is long past.

      Soyuz's payload fits in between Angara 1 and Angara 5, which is probably why they aren't yet planning to discontinue Soyuz. Like Falcon and Delta IV, Angara is built around a small common design, which can be used as a side-mounted booster for heavier payloads, except in their case, they're strapping four boosters around the central core instead of one, to make the heavy Angara 5 which is replacing Proton.

      I see an opening for a two-booster Angara 3. I think it would end up being somewhere between 150% and 200% the lifting capacity of Soyuz, which makes it less than ideal as a drop-in replacement, but should be serviceable as a lineup replacement.

      Of course, the continued flight of any Russian rocket (for anything but Russian military/intelligence payloads) kind of depends on them getting some form of reusability. They designed a folding-wing, horizontal-landing version of the Angara URM, but apparently they don't have the funding to actually build it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

        No insult to Korolyov, it was a great rocket for its time... but it's time is long past.

        but it continues to live forever and currently the ***only*** vehicle to put people into space. Yes, there are other vehicles being developed but so far all keep pushing their first crewed launch further into future as time marches on. But then one of these days one of these rockets and capsules will put someone into orbit from US soil. Then can it be done repeatibly (or need more flight tests)?

        As far as the Angara rocket, I'd put it in the good-luck-with-that dept. unless Putin is willing to give up a fe

      • Soyuz will not be retired any time soon because it is reliable, even if obsolete by modern standards.

        • Is it really? Soyuz-2 has had quite a few failures (four complete, three partial, out of 77 launches, and not clustered towards the start as you normally see). Soyuz-FG (the one currently used for crewed flights) may have made 66 successful launches in a row, but they're clearly having quality issues with Soyuz-2.

          • Well, a few failures on more than 77 launches is a pretty good record for explodey things like rocket boosters. It's necessary to put things into perspective.
  • Angara 5 will provide them with a booster that admittedly is more expensive, but on the other hand, at least it has no significant improvement in performance...wait a minute...? How was this supposed to work?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      According to Wikipedia, the new design driven to create a rocket built and launched entirely inside of Russia, since the existing rockets rely on components and infrastructure spread across multiple countries with the dissolution of the USSR.

      • To my understanding, this was more of a problem with Soyuz (the old analog avionics of Soyuz-U was Ukrainian) than with Proton. Although Angara *should* reduce Russia's dependency on Baikonur. So maybe it's more about infrastructure in case of Proton. (It has to be said that Vostochny's progress has been underwhelming so far, though, so Russia is not quite there yet.)

        • They did build a Soyuz launch pad in there. With the delays to Angara entering full production, it didn't make sense to complete the Angara launch site at the earlier date since they would have no rockets to actually launch.

          Angara also needs the LOX/LH2 upper stage to become competitive.

    • Not much different than the US government deciding that the way to have the best competitive launches was to allow the only two launch providers to combine and offer their launches at twice the price. And the funniest part is the ULA rockets use the Soviet designed Proton engines!

      SpaceX and the other commercial launch operators are the future, Congress and NASA should kill the SLA lauch vehicle pork project and move to low bid launch services by commercial providers. SpaceX has already more than halved laun

    • Because Proton uses toxic hypergolic fuel. Try reading about Nedelin disaster.

      I think Angara also uses less parts than Proton. So the reason it is currently more expensive is likely simply due to the low production rate.

      • Coming from some Russian reports, [iz.ru] the whole engine set for the five URM-1 stages on its own equates the price of the whole Proton. The propellant doesn't really have to do much with the price. (If anything, it makes the design easier, actually.)

        • It makes it "easier" from an operations point of view. It's easier to ignite. But if there's an accident it can cause a large ecological disaster. The fuel is corrosive and toxic and if it bursts into flames (remember you only need to mix the oxidizer with the propellant. it's also hygroscopic which means it burns into contact with water or water vapor).

          But the Proton rocket has like 6 large first stage engines, 4 second stage engines, 1 third stage engine, and another engine for the fourth stage. That's 12

          • It's like saying the single engine F-35 costs more than the twin engine F-22 because the production hasn't ramped up yet. Look at historical prices and see what happened.

  • Space bunnies?

  • ... when one of your space industry colleagues decides that the best place to continue observations is lying flat on the ground [youtu.be], best to take note...

  • "Fuel: N2O4/UDMH" (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Wikipedia says: "Fuel: N2O4/UDMH".

    A ghastly toxic combination. Does not require cryogenic cooling, though. Also ignites on contact.

    • Yep. The newer rockets use RP-1 (refined kerosene) and liquid oxygen. The latter is a pain to handle, but not particularly toxic or corrosive.

  • Headline Wrong - Apollo Launched First (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @09:20AM (#56847222) Homepage

    First "true" Apollo (Apollo II) launch was in January 1964 (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html) while the first Proton launch was in July of 1965 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Proton_launches_(1965%E2%80%9369)). There were Apollo technology test launches as early as 1961.

    Proton definitely outlasted Apollo, but I don't think it's accurate to say that it predates it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      They probably mean the Saturn V, which first launched in Nov 1967 as the first actual named Apollo, Apollo 4. Previous launches were labeled like AS-201.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • You do realize that "AS" is an acronym for "Apollo Saturn" don't you?

        Anyways, if you're going to follow that train of thought, the name "Proton" wasn't used explicitly for the booster until September 1967 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Proton_launches_(1965%E2%80%9369)).

        Regardless, "Apollo" was used for the name for the large US boosters in 1960 with first launches in 1964 - https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/C... [nasa.gov]

        • The headline would have been accurate if it had said "Predates the Saturn V".

          as noted by mykepredko, no, it doesn't predate Apollo.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Yet the one that burned up during testing was labeled Apollo 1 even though originally being AS-204 originally.
          My real point wasn't to argue about NASA's inconsistent naming but that the reference was to the Saturn V rther then the Saturn 1 or 1B.

          • NASA was very consistent in it's naming of Apollo boosters - I would argue that it's been more consistent with respect to Apollo than the naming used on the different Proton variants.

            If you consider "Apollo Saturn" as the Saturn V, and then looking at it versus the Proton-K, then you're not comparing apples to apples. The Proton-K (and indeed all Proton family members) has a lift mass of approximately 20,000 kg while the Saturn V could lift 140,000 kg. The Saturn 1B could lift approximately 20,000 kg whic

        • Weren't those very early (and unmanned) Apollo launches on Saturn I? Which was an entirely different booster from Saturn V.

          • The first launches of what became known as "Proton" were using a booster called "8K82K" and were quite a bit different from "Proton-K" (the contemporary to the Saturn 1B boosters used in 1967-1973) and are quite different from the currently used "Proton-M Briz-M".

            I picked the Saturn 1B because it has the same lift capability as its contemporary Proton-K.

            If you're going to choose the Saturn V, then you should compare it to the Russian N1.

  • So are they working on (Score:3)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @09:54AM (#56847346)

    an Anti-Proton rocket ?

    That would really powerful

  • Remember Atlas? An Atlas rocket launched John Glenn into orbit as part of the US Mercury program, and was an ICBM in 1958. They are launching an Atlas rocket in August 2018.

    (I know, Atlas in name only. Not the same technology).

  • its earliest missions launched creatures, including two turtles, to the Moon and back.

    So it's turtles all the way up.

    • The summary is misleading. The turtles went beyond the moon and came back, but they didn't land on the moon, they didn't even orbit the moon.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        The summary is misleading. The turtles went beyond the moon and came back, but they didn't land on the moon, they didn't even orbit the moon

        Turtles? Why turtles? I can understand sending monkeys into space. They are at least close to human shape, some what. But turtles? Where they like trying to think of something to send into space and just happen to come across two turtles chilling by the pond?

        • They were actually tortoises. Something to do with Zeno, I suppose.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by jwhyche ( 6192 )

            I still don't get the rational behind this. Mice, they are light so you can send a few. Monkeys are close to human standard model so you can learn a lot of science from them. But turtles?

            Where two Russians sitting around the break room. "Since we can't catch moose and squirrel lets send Ivans pet turtles to the moon. He'll get a kick out of it!"

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