Moscow government believes that it can succeed where the federal government has failed

Published: 5/26/1999

During a recent visit to the Molnia Research and Development Conglomerate, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, Mayor of Moscow, announced that the Moscow City government would support the MAKS multi-purpose aerospace project, so enabling Russia to progress ‘towards world leadership in manned space shuttle technology". In taking on such as ambitious project, the Moscow City government hopes to succeed where the federal government has failed. The project has strategic significance for Russia. It considers that space will provide the arena for the struggle for influence in the coming century, and the country that proves itself the leader in space technology will likely be a leader on Earth as well, a view that has not lost on Presidential hopeful Luzhkov. Russia"s national security infrastructure is already dependent on space technology and the role of space programs seems set to increase. Russia"s main competitors – the USA and European Space Agency member countries - have been working for some time on developing aerospace technology that will enable cost-effective payload delivery into orbit. A number of programs have begun in this area including NASP, AMLS and PLS in the USA, Hotol in Great Britain, Horus-Zenger in Germany, Hermes in France, and several others. Technical obstacles or sheer expense have brought some of these programs to a halt, but many are continuing. The US has conducted a test of the X-38 seven-seater shuttle program and the Rotary Rokot Company has developed its Roton aerospace system, and plans to carry out its first space launch next year. Russia, in spite of being the first state in space, has seen its space-shuttle programs come to a virtual stand still. But the Molnia Research and Development Conglomerate has pushed ahead with its MAKS project. Russian and US spacecraft designers have been working for years on creating re-usable spacecraft that can also function like a plane. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union developed its Energiya-Buran spacecraft, and the US designed and launched the Space Shuttle. The next step was to create long serving, multi-purpose aerospace technology. Molnia was set up in 1976 to design the Buran piloted space shuttle. The project director, Mr Gleb Lozino-Lozinskii,was an outstanding scientist and designer, who worked on the Spiral aerospace project in the 1960s. The Spiral designers planned to use a hypersonic booster aircraft capable of launching a shuttle at an altitude of 25 to 30 kilometres while flying at six times the speed of sound.But the Spiral project never got off the ground. Mr Lozino-Lozinskii"s other project - Buran -fared better and made its maiden, unmanned, flight on November 15, 1988. It orbited the Earth twice before coming in for a dead on landing. Buran incorporated some 400 new designs and technologies. Mr Aleksandr Bashilov, General Director of Molnia, has said that: “Whatever new and improved technologies we come up with in the future, they"ll all have their origins in the Buran project." But despite Buran"s successes, its first flight was also its last. Today, one of the models stands in Moscow"s Gorky Park. It is probably the most expensive park attraction in the world. The failure to get Buran up and running has left Russia still using booster rockets to carry satellites into orbit. This system is more complicated and expensive than a re-usable, multi-purpose shuttle. The MAKS system has a number of advantages over conventional booster rockets. It can deliver a payload to a precise orbit and perform forward, backward and sideways manoeuvres. MAKS technology is re-usable, non-polluting, and highly cost-effective. Preliminary estimates put the cost of delivering one kilogram of cargo into orbit using the MAKS system at $1,000 to $1,500:10 times less than using the American shuttle. As well as delivering payloads into orbit and returning them to Earth, MAKS technology can be used in emergency operations in space, for research and environmental and space monitoring. The MAKS system can also be used for defense purposes.The system comprises an An-225 Mria booster plane, which serves as a carrier for an orbital aircraft, manned or unmanned, or for a cargo container equipped with an outside fuel tank filled with cryogenic fuel. At an altitude of 10 kilometres, the aircraft and fuel tanks separate from the booster plane and enter into orbit, where the tank detaches. The orbital plane continues its flight and finally returns to Earth where it lands as an ordinary plane. Work is currently underway on three types of MAKS systems: • MAKS-OS - with a piloted orbital aircraft; • MAKS-T – a disposable cargo container with a payload capacity of up to 18 tons • MAKS-M - with an un-piloted orbital aircraft. The system"s flight mass is 620 tons. Molnia initially planned to assemble two booster planes, three orbital aircraft and 10 to 12 fuel tanks. Building on existing work, it should take no more than five to six years to develop fully the aerospace system. Molnia has already created full-scale prototypes of the orbital plane and the fueltank, and carried out most of the flight tests for the Mria first stage aircraft. Under more favourable circumstances, the MAKS system would already be carrying up to 60 – 70%of useful payload capacity into orbit today. This would have greatly facilitated current construction of the international space station. From a commercial point of view, MAKS is a potential moneymaker that, as calculations show, could pay for itself within two to three years and then turn a profit. This could well have prompted Mr Luzhkov"s decision to take the project, and Molnia itself, under his wing. It is not yet clear exactly howhe intends to resurrect the project, whichwill require at least $2.5 billion, according to the most conservative estimates. It seems likely that the city government will take over management of the state"s 34 % stake in the company. It may also push for the adoption of a special federal program for MAKS, and allocate funds from the city budget to support continued development and testing at Molnia. The inclusion of the MAKS project as a separate item in the federal budget would also serve as a guarantee for foreign investors. Many European countries have shown interest in working with Russia on developing multi-purpose aerospace technology, especially as the Russian project carries minimum technical risk and is closest to completion.

Article ID: 544