Russian Federal Space Agency

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The Russian Federal Space Agency (Russian: Федеральное космическое агентство) (commonly known as Roskosmos), formerly the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RKA; in Russian: Российское авиационно-космическое агентство, commonly known as Rosaviakosmos) is the government agency responsible for Russia's space science programme and general aerospace research. Roskosmos is located near Moscow in a town known as Star City. In March 2004 Anatoly Perminov became Roskosmos' General Director and since then he has led Russia's efforts to consolidate its space program.

1 History
- 1.1 Foundation and early years of its existence
- 1.2 2005 and new perspectives
2 Current programs
3 Launch control
4 External links

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History

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Foundation and early years of its existence

Image:Atlantis Docked to Mir.jpg RKA was formed after the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Soviet space program. The RKA uses the technology and launch sites that belonged to the former Soviet space program. The RKA has centralized control of Russia's civilian space program, including all manned and unmanned non-military space flights.

During the first years of its existence the Russian Space Agency, as the Soviet space program before it, has been consistently dogged by a lack of funding which has complicated efforts from the moon mission to cooperation on the International Space Station. The 1990s decreased the cash flow to Roskosmos in a way, so that engineers and scientists were constantly drawn to improvise and seek other ways to keep space programs running, which positively led to Roskosmos' leading role in commercial satellite launches and the launch of the first space tourists. While scientific missions such as interplanetary probes or astronomy missions during these years played a very small role, Roskosmos managed to operate the space station Mir well past its lifetime, contribute to the International Space Station and continue to fly Soyuz and Progress missions.

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2005 and new perspectives

However as of 2005 the outlook for future funding looks more favorable, as the Russian economy boomed during the last years alongside strong demand and high prices for oil and gas exported by Russia. The Russian government and duma approved a 305 billion rubles (ca. 11 billion dollar) budget for the Russian space program from 2006-2015, and overall space expenditures in Russia shall total 425 billion rubles for the same time period. [1] The budget for 2006 will be as high as 25 billion rubles (ca. 900 million dollars), which is more than one third higher than the RKA's space budget for 2005. During the 10 year space plan that was approved the budget shall increase between 5-10% per year thus providing the space agency with a strong and constant inflow of money.

In addition to the federal budget, Roskosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, that is through industry investions and profit gains by commercial space launches.

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Current programs

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ISS involvement

Image:Zarya from STS-88.jpg The Russian Space Agency is one of the partners in the International Space Station (ISS) program, it contributed the core space modules Zarya and Zvezda, which were both launched by Proton rockets and later were joined by NASA's Unity Module. Roskosmos is furthermore responsible for expedition crew launches by Soyuz-TMA spacecrafts and resupplies the space station with Progress space transporters. After the initial ISS contract with NASA expired, RKA and NASA, with the approval of the US government, entered into a space contract running until 2011, according to that Roskosmos will sell NASA spots on Soyuz spacecrafts for approximately $21 million per person each way (thus 42 million to and back from the ISS per person) as well as provide progress transport flights (50 million per progress as oultined in the ESAS study [2]). RKA has announced that according to this arrangement, manned Soyuz flights will be doubled to 4 per year and Progress flights also doubled to 8 per year beginning in 2008.

RKA also provides space tourism for fare-paying passengers to ISS through the Space Adventures company. Currently three space tourists have contracted with Roskosmos and have flown into space, each for an announced fee of $20 million.

Roskosmos has committed itself to further provide two additional modules to the ISS, both scheduled to be launched by Proton rockets. The first one, the Multipurpose Laboratory Module is currently scheduled for launch in 2007 or 2008, with one Russian Research Module following in 2009.

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Science programs

RKA operates a number of other programs for earth science, communication, and scientific research. Future projects include the Soyuz successor, the shuttle Kliper, scientific robotic missions to one of the Mars moons as well as an increase in Earth orbit research satellites.

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Rockets

Roskosmos is using a launch family of several rockets, the most famous of them is the R-7, commonly known as the Soyuz rocket, capable of launching about 7.5 tons into LEO. The Proton rocket (or UK-500) also developed in the 60s but still flying, has a lift capacity of over 20 tons to LEO. Smaller rockets include Cosmos-3M, the German-Russian cooperation Rockot and other launchers.

Currently rocket development encompasses both a new rocket system, Angara, as well as enhancements of the Soyuz rocket, Soyuz-2 and Soyuz-3. One modification of the Soyuz, the Soyuz-2a has already been successfully tested, enhancing the launch capacity to 8 tons to LEO, with the Soyuz-2b to follow this year with a launch capacity from Baikonur of 8.5 tons.

RKA manages by far the most commercial launches per year, in 2005 it launched nearly 50 % of all commercial satellites into space. [3]

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Kliper

Image:Kliper-esa.jpg

One of RKA's projects that has made a large impact on the media in 2005 is Kliper, a small lifting body reusable space-craft. While Roskosmos has reached out to ESA and JAXA as well as others to share development costs of the project, it also has stated that it will go forward with the project even without support of other space agencies. This statement was backed by the above described approval of its budget for 2006-2015 which includes the necessary funding of Kliper.

Information on Kliper's entry into service and development status vary. Some sources state 2010 as the first orbital test flight, others 2012. As of January 2006, the final decision on Kliper will be made from among 3 proposals of different Russian contractors with a decision to be announced in February 2006.

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Launch control

The military counterpart of the RKA is the Military Space Forces (VKS). The VKS controls Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch facility. The RKA and VKS share control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the RKA reimburses the VKS for the wages of many of the flight controllers during civilian launches. The RKA and VKS also share control of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

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