Russia’s biggest rocket, the #Angara A5, has been rolled out to Site 35/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome for a testing campaign of several days to conduct a series of checkouts ahead of the launcher’s maiden mission currently planned for Christmas Day. Angara A5 is hoped to become the workhorse of the Russian Space Program, taking over the bulk of Geostationary Launches from the Proton rocket in the coming decade. This flight will build on the successful sub-orbital test mission of the Angara 1.2PP launch vehicle performed on July 9, 2014. This flight successfully demonstrated the operation of the first stage of the new launcher along with its RD-191 engine as well as the second stage with its RD-0124A engine. The sub-orbital test flight showed that all components functioned to specification, allowing teams to graduate to the larger version of Angara and initiate final preparations for the first test launch of the 773-metric-ton Angara A5, becoming Russia’s biggest launch vehicle in the post-Soviet era. The Angara project was initiated back in 1992 and the Khrunichev State Research and Production Center, that also operates the Proton Rocket, was selected as developer and operator of Angara in 1995. Should all test yield positive results, Angara will be set for a Christmas Day launch with liftoff currently planned on December 25. Angara A5 is set to embark on a mission demonstrating that the launcher is fully capable of delivering a payload into a Geostationary Orbit. Following the operation of the boosters, core stage and URM-2 second stage, the Briz-M will take over to perform a series of burns over the course of several hours in order to achieve a Geostationary Orbit. After the demonstration, Briz-M will move out of the GEO Belt and enter a graveyard orbit to avoid adding to the space debris problem. Russian Ministry of Defence/SpaceFlight101/Khrunichev khrunichev.ru/main.php?id=1&nid=965
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:50:36 +0000
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