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July 22, 2014
Angara roll-out to the launch-pad
The program for the first flight space rocket designed in modern Russia is ready. But there is still a lot of work. Out from the factory floor to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is coming out the next Angara. In December, a satellite will be sent into orbit already as a layout - it will be a new testing stage/phase.
A historical start. Here begins the life of rocketAngara, which comes to replace the heavy veteran"Proton". It is stronger, more ecological and more versatile. Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, speaks more about it:"As long as we associate the rocket Angara at first with the Eastern Cosmodrome, and because this is a developing area in the territory of the Far East, it is necessary to say that it is environmentally friendly rocket and it works on a clean fuel."
Image above: Russia's first Angara rocket launches on its first test flight from the country's Plesetsk Cosmodrome on July 9, 2014. The mission launched a dummy payload into orbit during the demonstration flight.
The Angara rocket, which Russia has been developing for more than 20 years, blasted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia Wednesday (July 9) at 4:00 p.m. local time (8:00 a.m. EDT; 1200 GMT), carrying a dummy payload on its maiden flight. The mission was a suborbital test launch only, and did not carry its payload all the way into orbit.
"We reached the right speed, the rocket flew to the point at which it was planned, on the Kamchatka Peninsula, fell almost midfield", says the General Designer of "Salute", Khrunichev Yuri Bahvalov, "So the program was carried out in its fullest potential".
First launch test of the Angara rocket
From the Cosmodrome, "Vostochnoi" will start even more powerful Angara. If the first flight was with a light rocket, in December in space will be sent indeed a heavy modification. In fact, Angara is not just one but four rockets. Literally the cubes of universal modules (or as they are called "URMy") can collect rockets with a capacity from 4 to 35 tons. What is more, the start complex is an universal one.
In 2008 the engines Angara received for the first time on tests a command "key to start". Last year, the first stage of Angara sent into orbit Korean rocket KSLV as an international cooperation with Russia.
Angara rocket technical characteristics
"Similar schemes have been used in the past, but in its pure form, we implement a modular scheme for the first time", says Yuri Bahvalov, "and by the way, incidentally, Chinese now are following us. The French soon want to go after us and the Americans as well. Here, there is a full modular scheme and, in general, what we have done is for the the first time in the world."
The first flight of the space rocket, designed in contemporary Russia represents after all a significant event. But there is still a lot of work in the first place, the creation of the most powerful modification Angara - A7. And perhaps not only the Angara.
Angara rocket family
"We have ambitious plans and behind these ambitious plans should be the right opportunities", says the head of the Federal Space Agency Oleg Ostapenko, "One powerful booster rocket - it is an opportunity to achieve whatever is not done yet. It is necessary to create an impulse for the future generations. Working for today - probably it would be, to put it mildly, incorrect."
For the decades ahead in the Russian space program there are flights to the moon and Mars. That means the heavy and possibly the extra-heavy Angara may go behind in the history as a rocket for interplanetary missions.
ROSCOSMOS Press Release: http://www.federalspace.ru/20782/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS Press Service / ROSCOSMOS TV / Russian Ministry of Defense / Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center / Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace (Eli & Philippe Borowek).
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