MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The development of key components and technology for the creation of a super heavy space rocket system will cost Russia’s federal budget 24.3 billion rubles ($305.64 million), according to a new draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 prepared for the government’s consideration.
According to the document, the conceptual design of the complex with the launch vehicle and the upper stage is planned to be presented in 2018. The new super heavy rocket is expected to take 80 tonnes of payload to low Earth orbit and at least 20 tonnes of payload - to the lunar polar orbits.
The prototypes and technology for the creation of the key elements of the super heavy class launch vehicle is expected to be developed by 2025.
According to previous reports, the financing of the Federal Space Program until 2025 would amount to some 1.4 trillion rubles ($18.27 billion). An additional 115 billion rubles ($1.44 billion) may be allocated after 2021. The he draft program presented last spring provided for budget financing worth 2 trillion rubles ($26.11 billion).
According to the document, instead of the planned 47, the new draft programme envisages 38 launches of Earth remote sensing (ERS) satellites, and by 2025 the orbital constellation will comprise 25 ERS spacecraft instead of the planned 20. The new federal space programme draft excludes the launches of the meteorological satellites Electro-M, Meteor-MP, Obzor-O (system for high resolution observation of Russian territory) and Lider (space complex for all-weather monitoring of man-made and natural disasters).
As for the fundamental space research, according to the federal space program draft, the number of satellite launches to this end will be cut from 20 to 15, and the orbital constellation will decrease from 10 to 4 satellites. The launches of one Intergeliozond (space complex for heliophysics research of the Sun) and four Rezonans satellites (complex for studying the interaction of electromagnetic waves and particles in the Earth's magnetosphere) are excluded from the new program.
Roscosmos also intends to cut spending on servicing the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016-2015 by almost 30 billion rubles.
On January 11, the Izvestia daily reported, citing the final Federal Space Programme draft, submitted by Roscosmos to ministries, that over the next decade Russia will allocate 252.1 billion roubles ($3.43 billion) for flight control, servicing the Russian segment of ISS and implementing a programme of scientific experiments. Earlier FSP draft submitted in April last year envisaged spending 281.4 billion rubles ($3.82 billion) on the space program. The final draft was cut by almost a quarter to 1.521 trillion rubles ($21 billion) for the next 10 years.