Klipper

The Soyuz-2 launch vehicles may be used to place the Kliper shuttle in a near-earth orbit. The Klipper will weight about 14.5 metric tons and it will be able to be docked to the International Space Station for one year or perform an autonomous 15-day flights for space exploration or space tourism. The spacecraft would be able to make about 25 trips to space.

The new ship combines the advantages of the manned Soyuz spaceship that Russian-American crews fly to the ISS in, and unique Buran, which regrettably has not joined the Russian space fleet. The Klipper, which weighs less than the Buran, uses the Buran's heat protection and navigation systems.

Unlike the Soyuz, the Klipper can maneuver in orbit and carry six people and 700kg of cargo (the Soyuz can only carry 3 people and 300kg). It is also a more comfortable and safe spacecraft. Most importantly, it can be easily adapted for use to rotate crews and evacuate a space station as well as for use as a component for interplanetary flights.

Therefore, the Soyuz-2-Rus launch vehicle and the Klipper spaceship will be unrivalled in the world at least in the next two decades.

At RSC Energia, work on space vehicles with aerodynamic descent did not stop. As a result, in the first half of the 1990s a new The configuration of the descent vehicle with hypersonic aerodynamic quality is equal to unit. This allowed the device to weigh up to 15 tons. carry out at the stage of descent lateral maneuver up to 1000 km. from the ballistic flight route and reduce the size of the area landing up to 5h5km. The descent device made in accordance with the "carrying case" scheme has elongated asymmetrical form and is an intermediate variant between the "Buran" (aerodynamic quality at hypersound 1.3, at subsonic - 5.6) and almost ballistic-a capsule of the "Union" (aerodynamic quality of about 0.3).

A distinctive feature of this apparatus was a biconical bearing a heat-insulated case with blunt nose part, made in the form of connected upper and lower parts with different profiling surfaces. The lower surface facing the flow is closed bottom screen and is equipped with a stern shield consisting of two independent sections, which allows to control the device during descent in the atmosphere through the channels of pitch and roll. The apparatus landed on the "belly" using a parachute. The device received the name "return maneuvering capsule" but did not receive further development.

The development of manned cosmonautics set the task of developing a new piloted ship for the replacement of the "Union" - a capacious, inexpensive and efficient vehicle for near space. This is the project of space craft Klipper, which absorbed the experience of designing reusable ships. After the termination of work on maneuverable capsules in 1995, there remained design work, which and was used in developing proposals for the Clipper.

The work on the Clipper project began in 2000. By the beginning of 2002, it was determined taht the constructive shape of the ship-type "bearing body" is divided. Before 2003 work on "Clipper" was conducted in full initiative. Chronic underfunding of the space industry did not leave any hope for implementation of the project, but in 2003, Energia managed to interest Rosaviakosmos in the new ship. In the beginning of 2004. in RSC Energia was issued final report which was submitted in Rosaviakosmos (later the Federal agency). As a result, there were allocated small budgetary funds on the continuation of preliminary research and the construction of a full-size Clipper mock-up.

February 17, 2004 Director General of Rosaviakosmos Koptev first reported about the project of the prospective ship "Clipper" to the general public. In April 2004 Moiseev, the first deputy head of the FCA, reported on the inclusion of the Clipper project in Federa- space program of Russia for 2005-2015. For the first time, the layout was the general public on November 30, 2004.

According to the final report, the Clipper is a reusable multipurpose spacecraft, which can be used both in manned and in unmanned mode. It is developed as an element of the transport system serving the orbital complexes in near-earth orbits with a height of up to 500 km. The ship is sos- It consists of two functional compartments - a reusable returnable apparatus and one- one-time service-aggregate compartment, discharged after the brake momentum. Thus, it occupies an intermediate place between the reusable Bura- nom "Union", dropping before the brake impulse household, and then before entering the atmosphere and the service-and-aggregate compartments. For planting as on "Soyuz" uses a parachute system.

In the year 2004 In addition to the main variant of the ship, according to the "carrying case" scheme, project and research work on the winged version returned (together with Design Bureau. Sukhoi). The winged scheme in addition to providing more comfortable conditions for descent in the atmosphere and landing (the crew experiences slight overloads) lateral maneuver (1500-2000 km) and horizontal landing at the aerodrome with using a wheeled chassis. Landing at the aerodrome eliminates the need for the cost of search and rescue services (MSS).

Such a scheme can also include a large coefficient of reusability: it is not required the parachute system, the soft landing engines, the landing gear, i.e. one-time- Replacement systems are required after each flight. The disadvantage of the winged scheme is that it is not possible to uncontrolled descent of the ship, in connection with which the pre- The higher requirements for the reliability of on-board systems in the orbit and landing. In case of possible emergency descent, additional reserve aerodromes. It should also be noted that the winged version will be somewhat heavier. In the future, one of the options will be chosen for implementation.