Aerospace |
 Week of September 1, 1997 |
"Alpha
On Schedule" The Khrunichev Space Centre and Energia Rocketry-Space Corporation are
on schedule with the Functional
Cargo Block (FGB) and Service Module (SM), the two primary Russian-built
components to the During his visit to Khrunichev on 8 August, Boris Yeltsin announced a
just-signed presidential decree making the USD 99 million available for
the Russian Space Agency. In his radio speech on 22 August, the president
said, "In 1998 we will increase On 25 August the minister for economics Yakov Urinson said that in the FY 98 Budget the Russian Space Agency will be allocated Rbs 1.1 trillion for the ISS and Mir space stations. The Russian Government will make every effort to support the international space efforts, he added. 
Service ModuleMeanwhile, the Khrunichev Space Centre has replaced the SM's old docking adapters of the "male-female" type with hybrid ones, similar to those just fitted to the FGB. On 27 August the SM was underwent a pressure check before shipment to Energia, which will take place in the first half of September. Although Khrunichev should have handed over the SM to Energia in August, at the last minute it was decided to hold the shipment and perform additional checks to ensure everything is OK. Another reason to wait was that Energia needed some more time to prepare itself for its part of work on the module. Parly, this situation was caused by the late arrival of some instrumentation from sub-contractors. Despite this new delay with the SM, the schedule of ISS assembly flights remains unchanged. To offset the delay, it was decided to outfit the Service Module with some systems at the Baikonur cosmodrome during launch preparations, rather than at Energia as previously planned. Among those items are the Regul satellite-based communications system and the Improved Kurs automatic docking system. The Service Module will go into space on 20 December next year. Khrunichev has started manufacturing fuel tanks for a Proton booster for  this flight. The first-stage engines for "Carrier 398M2" (a reference to the SM's Proton in Khrunichev's documents) will be delivered from Perm to Moscow in July 1998. The second- and third-stage engines will have arrived in Moscow from Voronezh a month earlier. The booster will start taking shape in April, and in August it will be shipped to Baikonur. In parallel with the SM, Khrunichev continues modernization of the already-flyable FGB. On 27 August the Block was seen being fitted with an American unit for precise docking with the US Orbiter. Khrunichev people described the unit as a responder to the laser range-finder on the Shuttle. The workers are now laying down tubing and wiring to the FGB's hybrid docking adapter, which replaced the previously-mounted "male-female" one. With the new adapter in place, the Block can be docked, by its lower port, to the Progress automatic tankers and Soyuz crew vehicles. This capability will allow the FGB to take fuel and other expendables directly from the supply vehicles. The modification work on the FGB will be finished in December, and on 30 June 1998 it will go into space on a Proton. Khrunichev prepared the booster several months ago, and it is now kept in storage at one of the shops within the manufacturer's base in Fili, a north-west part of Moscow. With all forces concentrated on the SM and FGB, Khrunichev has not yet cut metal on the Large Cargo Ships. Ordered by the Russian Space Agency to supplement Energia's Progress tankers, the first of the four is planned for completion in 1999. If the FGB gets in orbit OK, its reserve shell, built "just in case," may be turned into the first Large Cargo Ship. This is possible thanks to the unified design of the Russian-built ISS modules. The flight of USM, the Universal Docking Module, is planned for the year 2000. This piece to the Russian segment of the Station will have five docking ports, including two for Soyuz crew vehicles and Progress cargo ships. The other three will be used for two scientific modules (one on back of the other) and two life-support modules. All those are planned for delivery on the Souyz-2 launch vehicles in the next century.  |
International
Space Station (ISS). Having received the first portion of budgetary money
for the FY 97 Budget, worth Rbs 800 bn, from five commercial banks under
state guarantees, the manufacturers are expecting the second financial injection,
worth USD 99 m, to drop in their wallets within the next two months.
budgetary
expenses for space, aviation, fundamental science and high technologies.
It is important to know that the state of our aerospace industry determines
the status of Russia as a world superpower." The president admitted
the needs of the Russian cosmonautics were properly recognized only after
a series of failures on the Mir space station.