The Snow Flies: A History of the Soviet Space Shuttle

Energia-M remains in development, but is having problems finding a market. At 30+ tonnes to LEO, it remains oversized for most commercial uses, and the aggressive marketing of the mature (though toxic) Proton launcher for the heaviest commercial payloads (those few too big for Zenit) is not leaving it much space in the marketplace.
Wouldn't it be pushed by Soviet government\military though? Both to make Energia and Zenit cheaper and get a 30 tonn launcher for government payloads?

I suspect that a TTL equivalent to Mars-96 would still suffer the Soviet/Russian Mars hoodoo
Well, it's unlikely to fly on the same Proton, and given that it was based on Phobos spacecraft, it can at least reach Mars before malfunctioning with some probability.

to the end of the Energia-Buran programme
Does it mean the last orbiter mission, or the last Energia mission?
 
Wouldn't it be pushed by Soviet government\military though? Both to make Energia and Zenit cheaper and get a 30 tonn launcher for government payloads?
How many thirty-ton payloads can the Soviets afford? IOTL, they certainly talked (and talk) a lot about new launch vehicles, but flying them, not so much. I expect the same is the case here--yeah, they want it, kind of vaguely, but at any given time there's something more urgent to spend money on, so it gets put off, and put off, and put off...

Well, it's unlikely to fly on the same Proton, and given that it was based on Phobos spacecraft, it can at least reach Mars before malfunctioning with some probability.
That doesn't mean a whole lot in of itself; after all, Mars Climate Orbiter reached Mars, and I don't think anyone would call that mission successful! :)

Overall, I suspect the budgetary issues (even if not as severe as IOTL) will probably cause poor QC/QA (this always suffers badly under financial pressure) which will lead to a mission failure.

Does it mean the last orbiter mission, or the last Energia mission?
Good question! I wonder this as well...
 
ryhs said:
Wouldn't it be pushed by Soviet government\military though? Both to make Energia and Zenit cheaper and get a 30 tonn launcher for government payloads?

Workable Goblin said:
How many thirty-ton payloads can the Soviets afford? IOTL, they certainly talked (and talk) a lot about new launch vehicles, but flying them, not so much. I expect the same is the case here--yeah, they want it, kind of vaguely, but at any given time there's something more urgent to spend money on, so it gets put off, and put off, and put off...

Yep, this is the problem; the Soviet government and military have no need for a launcher in that class either. RKK Energia and the other corporations have plenty of suggestions for payloads (super-sized Commsats being probably the most useful suggestion), but until the Soviet economy significantly picks up there's just no money to develop them (and even then it's hard to justify a new launcher for only a couple of payloads).

Workable Goblin's got the mood about right - similar to how Angara was viewed in the '90s: "Yes, we want it, we're developing it, it will fly some day... it's just we need those funds for something else this year. Next year, though..."

ryhs said:
Well, it's unlikely to fly on the same Proton, and given that it was based on Phobos spacecraft, it can at least reach Mars before malfunctioning with some probability.

Workable Goblin said:
That doesn't mean a whole lot in of itself; after all, Mars Climate Orbiter reached Mars, and I don't think anyone would call that mission successful! :)

Overall, I suspect the budgetary issues (even if not as severe as IOTL) will probably cause poor QC/QA (this always suffers badly under financial pressure) which will lead to a mission failure.

As I mentioned, it's not an area where I've gone into the detail, so it's possible the Soviets do get lucky with Mars-96 ITTL - which would be very cool, as it looked like an awesome mission! But I'd say the odds are stacked against them.

rhys said:
Does it mean the last orbiter mission, or the last Energia mission?

Yes.

;)
 

Insider

Banned
First of all I like to say that this TL is fantastic. Good job.
As I mentioned, it's not an area where I've gone into the detail, so it's possible the Soviets do get lucky with Mars-96 ITTL - which would be very cool, as it looked like an awesome mission! But I'd say the odds are stacked against them.
If it leaves Earth's gravity well, (with Buran's help I presume) the probability of achieving at least partial success is quite big. Note that the probe has five elements - that offers quite a redundancy. You can have orbital module failing to brake while one of the surface station's could successfully survive the descent. Or the other way around :D
 
First of all I like to say that this TL is fantastic. Good job.
If it leaves Earth's gravity well, (with Buran's help I presume) the probability of achieving at least partial success is quite big. Note that the probe has five elements - that offers quite a redundancy. You can have orbital module failing to brake while one of the surface station's could successfully survive the descent. Or the other way around :D

Buran has not been used for launching any probes so far. Aside from the low (and slightly unpredictable) launch rate not having left room for probes with critical launch windows, the Soviets are following the post-Challenger US practice of not launching their shuttles with large liquid boosters in the payload bay. As IOTL, I expect Mars 96 would have gone up on a Proton (a quick check indicates the probe plus Blok-D upper stage would be too heavy for Zenit, but if someone knows otherwise I'm happy to be corrected).
 
Mission 1K3: Retiring Mir
Mission 1K3: Retiring Mir, April 1997

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Success in Space, Problems on Earth

Even as the USSR hailed the success of Buran’s first manned launch, an economic storm was preparing to break over the country. Despite the post-Ligachyov reforms, a combination of poor productivity, large government deficits, the over-valuation of the ruble, and the crippling costs of the ongoing conflict in the Caucuses was storing up trouble for the ex-superpower’s economy. The programme of privatisation in the early nineties, though not going as far as many in the West had hoped, had given many foreign observers the impression that the USSR was on a sustainable path towards “economic normalisation”. This fallacy was exposed in April 1995, when revelations of massive fraud in the sell-off of energy giant Gazprom triggered a sudden loss of confidence in the Soviet economy, which soon contracted at levels not seen since the late 1980s. By August 1995 a combination of devaluation of the ruble, a massive hike in central bank interest rates and an emergency loan from the IMF had managed to stabilise the situation. The central government committed itself to rein in profligate spending, reduce subsidies to the Republics, and liberalise rules on tax and investment by foreign companies. Together with a sometimes brutal government campaign against the excesses of the so-called “oligarchs” who had bought and then gutted former public sector companies (or at least those oligarchs who no longer retained good political connections, including a surprising number of newspaper and media company owners), this began to to stem the flow of capital out of the country. Despite all this, the Soviet economy still would not recover to its pre-crisis level until early 1997.

The expensive Soviet space programme was an immediate target for cutbacks following the economic crisis. Despite its general popularity with the Soviet people as a source of national pride and, more importantly, the unofficial patronage it enjoyed from President Nazarbayev, the need to quickly reduce government expenditure meant that tough choices now needed to be taken.

As early as May 1995, the decision was taken by the Soviet Space Agency (VKA) to cancel the next manned shuttle test flight, planned for Burya in late 1995, and declare the system “fully operational”. This was a controversial choice amongst veterans of the project, who had already seen the original 10-flight test programme cut back drastically, and who remembered vividly the consequences that had followed NASA declaring their shuttle operational too soon. These concerns were overridden by the RKK Energia’s management and their political bosses in the Soviet Space Agency. The Soviet shuttle had now performed four flawless launches (with Energia’s 1987 maiden flight marking a fifth success for the rocket), had been crewed for at least part of three missions, and had safely docked with Mir twice. The fact was that with efforts to commercialise the Energia-T and Energia-M vehicles continuing to meet with failure, the costs associated with supporting the shuttle’s giant booster were in any case limiting the programme to no more than one or two missions per year even before the crisis hit. The implication was therefore that if the original test plan were followed the orbiter airframes would be almost two decades old by the time they were declared “operational”, an absurd situation. Safety would of course remain top priority, but it was time to put the shuttle properly to work if it was to demonstrate its value to those holding the purse strings. Mission 2K3 was therefore cancelled and the next mission postponed into late 1996. The funding crunch meant that this date also quickly became unrealistic, and it would be 1997 before the next Soviet shuttle mission. In the end, the only shuttle to visit Mir in 1996 was the American orbiter Atlantis, on a joint mission designed to give US astronauts experience in station operations before starting assembly of their own space station the following year.

More dramatic than a slipped launch date was the decision that all future shuttle missions would be carried out by just a single orbiter. With replacement of the aging Mir space station now the VKA’s top priority, there was not enough room in the budget to justify keeping both shuttle orbiters in service. The flight rate now accepted for the shuttle could easily be supported by just one orbiter vehicle, and eliminating the second shuttle could even speed up inter-mission maintenance as it would no longer be necessary to process two vehicles in parallel. With skilled manpower becoming an increasing problem as veteran technicians and engineers began retiring without replacements being hired, halving the fleet would allow managers to stretch their shrinking resources further. Additionally, by using one of the orbiters as a source of spares for the other it would be possible to shut down some of the expensive, over-specialised supply chains supporting the shuttle programme, leading to further cost savings that could be ploughed into Mir’s replacement and upgrades to its supporting Progress and Soyuz spacecraft. No official announcement was ever made, but in September 1995 work on upgrading Burya to full crew launch capability was halted, never to resume.

One final victim of the funding crisis was the Mir space station itself. Operating well beyond its 5-year design lifetime, and with hardware for Mir-2 already under fabrication, it was decided that the Soviet budget would not be able to support two space stations in parallel any more than it could two shuttles. By December 1995 it was clear that for the numbers to add up, Mir-1 would have to have already been evacuated and decommissioned by the time the Mir-2 core was launched. Despite calls for the veteran station to be boosted into a high orbit to allow future missions to retrieve equipment and experiments for use on Mir-2, as well as an aborted attempt to sell the station to a Western consortium, by mid-1996 the decision had been taken to de-orbit the station, avoiding the risk of an uncontrolled re-entry that could injure people on the ground. Before that happened, Soviet space planners intended to extract as much value from the station as possible. Buran’s next flight, mission 1K3, was therefore tasked with making one last visit to the doomed station.

Mission Preparation

Despite being declared operational, the decision was quickly made to limit the crew size for mission 1K3 to no more than four. The shuttle was designed to carry as many as ten people, but that would mean six crewmembers being seated in the Habitation Compartment (BO) - equivalent to the US shuttle’s Mid Deck - which would in turn require some remodelling to allow ejection seats to be fitted (unlike NASA, the Soviets saw the ejection seats as a necessity even for operational flights). No more than four cosmonauts were expected to be needed for the mission objectives, and Mir’s life support systems would be unable to support any more than six (four from the shuttle plus the two regular crew members) should there be a need to evacuate to the station, so this limit was quickly accepted. It would still see 1K3 carry the largest group of cosmonauts ever launched together by the USSR.

The main objective of the mission was to take up supplies needed for the next few months and recover as many valuable pieces of equipment and experiments as possible for return to Earth before Mir was destroyed. The de-orbit itself would be performed by an unmanned cargo ship, hopefully a test flight of the new Progress-M2 vehicle. Despite much speculation in the media that Buran would bring back one of the large DOS or 77K space station modules in its entirety (a scenario that at least one Soviet media company claimed the Americans were studying as part of a plan to steal the station [1]), this was never considered a realistic option. Aside from Fosvich and Oblako, none of Mir’s modules had been designed to interface with the shuttle’s payload bay, and the many external antennas, girders and experiments that had been added over the years meant that it would be a mammoth job just to get them to fit inside the hold. Instead, Mir’s crew would load the already-docked Oblako with equipment to be returned, which Buran would then collect. At the same time a smaller module named “Usik” (“Cirrus”) would be dropped off with the supplies needed to see Mir through to its end.

Usik was delivered to Baikonur from the Progress plant in Samara in January 1997. Similar to the previously launched Fosvich-2 module, Usik was a “bare bones” upgrade of the Soyuz orbital module taken from vehicle 103, the third and last of the original batch of “Rescue Soyuz” spacecraft that had been ordered to support shuttle test flights (vehicles 101 and 102 having gone on to be used for space station ferry missions as Soyuz TM-16 and Soyuz TM-21 respectively). With four crew aboard Buran, an orbital rescue by a single Soyuz was not an option, so in an emergency Buran would instead use Mir as a safe haven until regular Soyuz missions could retrieve the crew. This increased the risks involved (for example it assume the emergency would not prevent Buran from docking, or at least rendezvousing, with Mir), but was considered acceptable for operational shuttle missions.

Refurbishment of the Soyuz 103 orbital module, which was already fitted with an APAS-89 port compatible with Kristall, saved considerable time and money in delivering Usik, with the main modifications being the addition of payload bay support struts and SBM grab points. These savings were especially important as the Progress plant was already heavily loaded with work to prepare the new line of upgraded Soyuz-TMA and Progress-M2 spacecraft, as well as two Soyuz-ACRVs for the United States’ space station Alpha.

Changes to Buran herself were largely limited to refurbishment of the thermal protection system tiles and the addition of two more ejection seats in the flight deck. These modifications were largely completed by September 1996, but the orbiter was then held in the MIK-OK for five months. In the first instance this was due to a delay in the readiness of the Energia 6L rocket, with late payments from VKA to OKB Yuzhnoye as a result of the 1995 economic crisis leading to knock-on effects on the production and delivery schedule. By December 1996 vehicle 6L was being assembled in the MIK-RN, but further delays then came as cracks were found in some of the fueling pipes at the Site 110 launch pads. A result of lax maintenance over the previous years, these required lengthy repairs in the depths of the Kazakh winter, meaning that Buran/6L would not make it to the pad until April 1997.

Mission 1K3 Launches

Buran mission 1K3 finally lifted off on 24th April 1997. On board were mission commander Valery Tokarev (who had transferred to the TsPK cosmonaut team following the disbanding of the Air Force GNIKI group in 1994) and pilot Nikolay Pushenko, a former test pilot who had been selected for TsPK’s Buran group in 1990. Joining them were two of TsPK’s flight engineers, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov and Sergei Krikalev. Both had been selected for shuttle missions in the 1980s, and had at one point been considered as members of the very first shuttle crew as part of a joint LII/TsPK team. Ivanchenkov was a veteran of two missions to Salyut-6 and 7, with almost 148 days of flight time under his belt, whilst Krikalev had participated in two expeditions to Mir, EO-4 and a long duration stay over EO-9/10.

Despite initial indications of a trouble-free launch, the mission was to include the first significant launch anomaly for the Energia rocket, when more than five minutes into the flight one of the four RD-0120 hydrogen burning engines on the core stage began losing thrust, before cutting out altogether at T+6m17s. Alarms immediately sounded on the shuttle’s flight deck and at mission control in Kaliningrad, but the humans responsible for the launcher’s flight had little to do as the automatic systems immediately reacted. As the failure had occurred after Blok-A booster separation, Buran’s flight computers put the stack into a Single Orbit Trajectory abort scenario, gimbaling the remaining three engines and increasing their burn time to compensate for the lost engine. With Tokarev and Pushenko monitoring closely on the CRT displays of their Vega-1 console, Buran steered the wounded rocket into a suborbital trajectory with an apogee of 142 km. The subsequent separation of the shuttle orbiter from the core stage went smoothly and, following a full systems check, the crew ordered the computer to fire the DOM engines to circularise Buran’s low orbit rather than initiate an early return to Earth. Buran was left substantially lower than her planned initial orbit, which in turn implied a larger than expected velocity change would be needed from the DOM engines to reach Mir. This ate into the mission propellant margins, but the TsUP control centre confirmed these remained within mission rules. Tokarev and his crew were therefore ordered to continue their mission, with ground controllers providing an updated schedule of engine burns to compensate for the lower starting point.

On the ground, the Soviet authorities initially withheld information on the incident, with TASS and Soviet Central Television reporting a completely successful launch. Only a few days later, when NORAD and amature space tracking enthusiasts began publically noting the unusually low parking orbit, did the Soviet’s admit that a “minor launch anomaly” had been encountered.

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Cleaning House

With the drama of the launch behind them, Buran and her crew proceeded on an uneventful two-day chase of Mir, capped with a successful docking at the first attempt on 26th April 1997, joining Mir EO-23 crew Vasily Tsibliyev and Salizhan Sharipov. Over the next two days the Buran and Mir crews worked together to complete the removal of any valuable experiments and equipment to the Oblako module, including a spacewalk by Sharipov and Krikalev on the 28th to recover equipment mounted outside of the Kvant-2 and Kristall modules. Small samples were brought inside via Kvant-2’s airlock, with some large items moved to Oblako’s external storage compartments.

In an interview for the BBC several years later, Krikalev reported his shock at how much the condition of the Mir had deteriorated in the six years since his last stay. The station suffered frequent black-outs as the aging batteries were unable to support all systems throughout eclipse periods, and much of the equipment they had intended to recover could not be located amongst the clutter of more than a decade of use. Where equipment was removed, it was not uncommon to find mould growing on the walls where they’d been mounted. Thermal control was also an issue, with temperatures inside the station sometimes varying between 10 and 30 degrees Celsius over the course of an orbit. Krikalev reported that for the duration of their stay Tsibliyev and Sharipov slept in Buran’s BO, which maintained a much more comfortable environment rather than their own quarters on Mir. Although a violation of mission rules (in the event of an emergency undocking and re-entry there would not be enough seats for all of the cosmonauts aboard Buran), it allowed the two station crewmembers to enjoy a few nights without enduring temperature fluxes and frequent alarms. Despite strident calls from some in the Congress of People’s Deputies to save Mir as a badge of national pride, the cosmonauts who crewed her knew that the station was well past its prime and overdue for retirement.

Once packed and sealed, Oblako was detached from Kristall’s lateral port by one of Buran’s SBM arms on 29th April and replaced by the smaller Usik capsule. With the primary mission objectives accomplished, Buran’s crew began preparations for departure before undocking on the morning of 30th April. The planned de-orbit burn was complicated when one of the Biser-4 computers refused to load the necessary software, leading to a scrub of the burn. A re-boot of the machine failed to clear the problem, but as the other three units were functioning normally mission controllers gave the go-ahead for re-entry on the following orbit (an option made possible by the shuttle’s large cross-range capability). This burn was successfully executed and Buran went on to complete a nominal re-entry and landing profile under fully automatic control, bringing the Soviet shuttle’s first operational mission to a successful conclusion.

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Farewell to Mir

Tsibliyev and Sharipov remained on Mir until 10th July, when they were replaced by Nikolai Budarin and Gennady Padalka, launching on Soyuz TM-26. The primary mission of Budarin and Padalka’s EO-24 was final decommissioning of the station, ensuring it was in a fit state to be safely de-orbited - morbidly referred to as the “gravedigger mission” by the cosmonauts. Despite this grim role, the mission would also provide a valuable contribution to the future of the Soviet space programme by proving out one of the new generation of space transports. This came in September with the unmanned launch of Progress M2-1.

Based on the long heritage of the Samara plant’s Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, Progress M2 was designed to take advantage of Zenit’s superior lifting capability to mount an extended pressurised capsule on a larger, more powerful service module, boosting the total mass of cargo that could be carried to 5.7 tonnes, as compared to the 2.6 tonnes of the older Progress M [2]. Normally intended to mount an APAS-89 androgynous docking port, for this first mission Progress M2-1 carried the trusty SSVP probe, allowing the large cargo ship to link up with the corresponding drogue port at the rear of Mir’s Kvant-1 module on 19th August 1997. The trouble-free docking and subsequent propellant transfer tests proved that Progress M2 was ready to support the USSR’s future in space.

Budarin and Padalka finally departed the station aboard Soyuz TM-26 on 27th October 1997, bringing a close to over a decade of permanent Soviet manned presence in space [3]. One month later, on 18th November, ground controllers at Kaliningrad commanded Progress M2-1 to fire her main engines, lowering the station’s orbit until it kissed the atmosphere high over the Pacific. Aerodynamic forces further slowed the station, preventing its re-emergence into space, before finally ripping her modules apart and reducing them to a fiery trail of artificial meteors in the night’s sky. It was the end of an era for Soviet manned spaceflight, but a new dawn was already visible on the horizon.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


[1] Very similar to the rumour from OTL regarding US plans to steal Salyut-7, and just as divorced from reality.


[2] IOTL the Progress M2 was first proposed for Mir-2, with a later variant, Progress MT, put forward in 1999 for launch on the Yamal rocket (an R-7 with a high energy upper stage) to support the ISS.


[3] Habitation of Mir commenced with Soyuz T-15, launched on 13 March 1986. However, there was a hiatus between the return of Soyuz T-15 on 16 July 1986 and the subsequent launch of the next mission aboard Soyuz TM-12 on 5 February 1987, after which Mir was permanently crewed.
 
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Some Question on Post #66

That is first "launch anomaly" of Energia rocket, i wonder wenn one of Zenit booster engines will explode, what happen on several Zenit rocket in 1990-2000s
Is Progress M2 launch by Zenit rocket ?
 
Ah, it seems the hard drop in their economy came a bit sooner than the Russian Debt Default of OTL.

And the first launch anomaly for Energia LV. At least the early engine shutdown came soon enough to allow Buran to still make orbit and perform its mission. Must have been more than a few sighs of relief at that.

As as Michel has said, what would happen were a Zenit Blok-A Booster to fail? I suppose depending on the mode of failure, they could either try to glide back, or hope those ejection seats are really something...

Progress M2? That's the one designed for launching with the Zenit LV correct? Hence the much greater payload it can take.

Why do I get the feeling that Zenit-Derived LVs are going to be the favoured choices down the line?

Mir. Yeah, it was really showing its age by 1997 - IIRC this was 5 years after its intended maximum lifespan - and I'm sure I read somewhere that IOTL, STS flights to Mir noted a dramatic deterioration in the station's condition between the 1995 and 1997 flights. So the replacement can't come soon enough.

Speaking of. It's the greater budget offered by the surviving USSR that's making the money available for it, right? Even with the recent crunch caused by their most recent economic woes. That said, I'm more than confident that already, Mir-2 is falling behind schedule.
 

Archibald

Banned
I know the background of that last picture: it was taken from STS-71 as the shuttle left Mir IOTL of course.

Meanwhile Buran abort modes are much, much better than US shuttle...
 
Energia-M remains in development, but is having problems finding a market. At 30+ tonnes to LEO, it remains oversized for most commercial uses, and the aggressive marketing of the mature (though toxic) Proton launcher for the heaviest commercial payloads (those few too big for Zenit) is not leaving it much space in the marketplace.

The problem I see for Energia M is that it competes with Energia-Buran. The cost of launching a much larger rocket isn't that much compared to developing a new rocket (even if all the components already exist in a different form) and the Soviets will want to keep flying Energia-Buran anyway for prestige reasons. Keep in mind that the US has only launched the Delta IV Heavy 9 times in 12 years. That's not alot of demand.

I think with Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia still in a union with each-other (and a Kazakh general sec.) Proton is doomed. Phasing out Proton makes the Kazakhs happy, and selecting a zenit-variant to replace it makes the Ukrainians happy.

The Proton could be replaced by either Energia M (unlikely IMO), Energia-Buran, "Zenit 2.5" (a Zenit with a partially fueled first stage strapped to it as an asymmetric booster) or Deuteron (the all LH2/LOX design that was gaining support just before the SU fell). My money is on Energia-Buran, to be honest. Though for launching things into GSO, the Zenit 2.5 might have the edge.

Also, keep in mind that a large part of the economic turmoil of the 90s was caused by trade links between the Soviet republics being severed as they became independent. With the SU mostly still a single entity, trade disruption isn't going to be an issue. The overall economy is likely to be doing much better unless the new leadership are doing some really dumb things.

fasquardon
 
Michel Van said:
Some Question on Post #66

That is first "launch anomaly" of Energia rocket, i wonder wenn one of Zenit booster engines will explode, what happen on several Zenit rocket in 1990-2000s

The RD-170/1 engine certainly had some teething troubles, including an explosion that destroyed the test stand in the early '80s, but Zenit IOTL actually had a pretty good record between 1991-97, with two of the failures early on in the decade attributed to the upper stage, and so are not relevant for Energia. Of the 26 operational (i.e. not test flights) launches before 2000, 6 were failures, but only two of those related to the first stage. After 2000 there were 49 futher missions, of which only two failed due to the first stage (another two failed due to upper stage issues).

ITTL Zenit has been marketed more successfully and has caried out more launches by 1997, plus the extra 16 Blok-As that have flown compared to OTL. Together with the lower disruption to its supply chains and workforce due to the USSR staying in one piece, this extra operational experience means Zenit has matured a little faster. There have been failures of course, but so far none of the Blok-A boosters flown has experienced a problem.

Michel Van said:
Is Progress M2 launch by Zenit rocket ?

Bahamut-255 said:
Progress M2? That's the one designed for launching with the Zenit LV correct? Hence the much greater payload it can take.

Yes, Progress M2 is launched on Zenit - it's too heavy for Soyuz.

Bahamut-255 said:
And the first launch anomaly for Energia LV. At least the early engine shutdown came soon enough to allow Buran to still make orbit and perform its mission. Must have been more than a few sighs of relief at that.

As as Michel has said, what would happen were a Zenit Blok-A Booster to fail? I suppose depending on the mode of failure, they could either try to glide back, or hope those ejection seats are really something...

Archibald said:
Meanwhile Buran abort modes are much, much better than US shuttle...

The abort options were described in Mission 1K2. Basically, any failure before T+1m40s will see the crew ejecting. Between T+1m40s and Blok-A separation at T+2m26s the two options are to jettison the Blok-A boosters and have the Core plus orbiter perform a Return Manoeuvre (basically NASA's Return to Launch Site abort), or do an Emergency Separation of the orbiter from the stack, after which the orbiter would glide to a landing at an emergency runway in the Russian Far East. Emergency Separation was apparently considered the most risky option, as analysis showed a high chance that the orbiter would hit the Core as it separated, with Very Bad results. In practice I'd be surprised if a Blok-A explosion would give time for either option.

Bahamut-255 said:
Why do I get the feeling that Zenit-Derived LVs are going to be the favoured choices down the line?

As mentioned, Zenit is making real inroads into Arianespace's market ITTL. It's modern, reasonably reliable, and cheap, especially after the devaluation of the ruble.

Bahamut-255 said:
Mir. Yeah, it was really showing its age by 1997 - IIRC this was 5 years after its intended maximum lifespan - and I'm sure I read somewhere that IOTL, STS flights to Mir noted a dramatic deterioration in the station's condition between the 1995 and 1997 flights. So the replacement can't come soon enough.

Speaking of. It's the greater budget offered by the surviving USSR that's making the money available for it, right? Even with the recent crunch caused by their most recent economic woes. That said, I'm more than confident that already, Mir-2 is falling behind schedule.

The Mir Base Block was designed for a 5 year lifetime, which expired in 1991, so it's definately showing its age. We'll be exploring more about space station developments in the next post, but for now I'll say you're broadly correct, I've spent TTL's Soviet Budget Bonus on keeping the shuttle flying and paying for a Mir replacement, with a bit more scrimping and saving going into developing Progress M2 and a Soyuz upgrade.


Archibald said:
I know the background of that last picture: it was taken from STS-71 as the shuttle left Mir IOTL of course.

Well spotted for the image! It seemed appropriate :)


fasquardon said:
Energia-M remains in development, but is having problems finding a market. At 30+ tonnes to LEO, it remains oversized for most commercial uses, and the aggressive marketing of the mature (though toxic) Proton launcher for the heaviest commercial payloads (those few too big for Zenit) is not leaving it much space in the marketplace.
The problem I see for Energia M is that it competes with Energia-Buran. The cost of launching a much larger rocket isn't that much compared to developing a new rocket (even if all the components already exist in a different form) and the Soviets will want to keep flying Energia-Buran anyway for prestige reasons. Keep in mind that the US has only launched the Delta IV Heavy 9 times in 12 years. That's not alot of demand.

I don't think the Soviets ever really considered Buran for commercial payloads. It was always a military baby, intended to match capabilities with STS and support Soviet military objectives. Also, I believe the Soviets learned from the lessons of Challenger and agreed with NASA's assesment that a shuttle was never going to be the commercial workhorse that had been claimed (in fact the Soviets never believed NASA's claims for the economy of the shuttle, which is part of the reason they assumed it had to have another, secret purpose). So I don't think Energia-M was considered to be in competition with Buran, but rather, as you correctly identify, a replacement for Proton (though an oversized one). In fact Energia-M was seen as a way of spreading the costs of Energia-Buran by having another programme help pay for the production lines and infrastructure. However, as discussed above, ITTL the money to push Energia-M over the finish line is never quite there.


fasquardon said:
I think with Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia still in a union with each-other (and a Kazakh general sec.) Proton is doomed. Phasing out Proton makes the Kazakhs happy, and selecting a zenit-variant to replace it makes the Ukrainians happy.

The Proton could be replaced by either Energia M (unlikely IMO), Energia-Buran, "Zenit 2.5" (a Zenit with a partially fueled first stage strapped to it as an asymmetric booster) or Deuteron (the all LH2/LOX design that was gaining support just before the SU fell). My money is on Energia-Buran, to be honest. Though for launching things into GSO, the Zenit 2.5 might have the edge.

On the continuing flights of Proton, don't forget that IOTL Kazakhstan (and President Nazarbayev) could have banned Proton flights, but didn't. Why not? Money! ITTL Nazarbayev has other ways of feathering his nest and rewarding his allies, but I imagine the government of the Kazakh SSR is still receiving a special subsidy from the central government to help compensate for the environmental damage (plus a few unofficial subsidies to certain key officials and politicians, which quickly make their way into Swiss bank accounts or properties in London).

Less cynically, Proton has the benefit of a proven track record, meets a demonstrated market need, and, most importantly, is in-place. Like Ariane, it will see its market share eroded by Zenit, but not enough to eliminate it as a contender. Maybe a future Soviet government will consider environmental needs and worker safety over expediency and self-interest... but not this Soviet government.


Bahamut-255 said:
Ah, it seems the hard drop in their economy came a bit sooner than the Russian Debt Default of OTL.

fasquardon said:
Also, keep in mind that a large part of the economic turmoil of the 90s was caused by trade links between the Soviet republics being severed as they became independent. With the SU mostly still a single entity, trade disruption isn't going to be an issue. The overall economy is likely to be doing much better unless the new leadership are doing some really dumb things.

Inter-Republic trade disruption is indeed reduced compared with OTL, but there are still conflicts between the Republics and between the Republics and the Centre, as seen in Mission 2K2's discussion of fighting over the profits of privatisation. The Union continues, yes, but it is nowhere near as monolithic a state as it was before the 1980s. More generally, the economy is still struggling under the transition from a command economy to a market economy. Factories used to producing a certain number of widgets simply because that's what was in the Plan were very poorly equiped to understand and adapt to market demand. That transition is happening more slowely than IOTL, but this is part of what accelerated the timeframe of the crash - the central (and Republic) governments have not been cutting back on spending nearly as brutally as the Russian government did IOTL, and so the national debt has climbed faster. In the early '90s the international markets didn't worry so much, as they experienced a rush of blood to the head as Soviet markets started to really open up for the first time, but when a shock comes along in the form of the Gazprom scandal, that enlarged pile of debt (along with poor fundemenatls, such as stubbornly low productivity, an artificially high exchange rate, and an obsolete infrastructure) triggers a stronger fear reaction, sooner, and the markets react accordingly. Hence an earlier crash, though one not quite as deep.

Well, that's how I reasoned it anyway, but I'm no economist, so I could be talking nonsense :)
 
I completely sympathise!

i look in literature: "Russia in Space" by Anatoly Zak, ISBN 9781926837253

There were 6 different variation on Progress M1, M2, M3, MT, GVK and somehow also the ISS Enterprise module (aka Russian Mulit-Purpose-Module)
M3 to GCK need the Yamal Rocket a Soyuz rocket with Third stage using Hydrogen / Oxygen propellant, never build.
 
I don't think the Soviets ever really considered Buran for commercial payloads. It was always a military baby, intended to match capabilities with STS and support Soviet military objectives. Also, I believe the Soviets learned from the lessons of Challenger and agreed with NASA's assesment that a shuttle was never going to be the commercial workhorse that had been claimed (in fact the Soviets never believed NASA's claims for the economy of the shuttle, which is part of the reason they assumed it had to have another, secret purpose). So I don't think Energia-M was considered to be in competition with Buran, but rather, as you correctly identify, a replacement for Proton (though an oversized one). In fact Energia-M was seen as a way of spreading the costs of Energia-Buran by having another programme help pay for the production lines and infrastructure. However, as discussed above, ITTL the money to push Energia-M over the finish line is never quite there.

I agree that using Buran for commercial launches won't be what the Soviets want to do, however, they are in desperate need to push up Buran launch rates (prestige, to show they still have some old superpower magic, cost reduction and to retain strategic skills). I can see the Soviets offering space in the Buran cargo bay as a form of "ride sharing".

As for Energia M, so far as I am aware all of the payloads in the 25-30 tonne to LEO range are government payloads. As such, even if Buran doesn't offer space to commercial loads, it still will compete with Energia M for government loads.

That said, for Buran to be better than Energia M, they would need to find a way to get a tug stage up there (and not inside the Buran cargo bay). I wonder if the Soviets might launch a fuel depot (hypergolic, of course) and something based on the Briz stage to ferry Buran loads from LEO up to GSO?

Or maybe all that would be as expensive as finishing the Energia M...

On the continuing flights of Proton, don't forget that IOTL Kazakhstan (and President Nazarbayev) could have banned Proton flights, but didn't. Why not? Money! ITTL Nazarbayev has other ways of feathering his nest and rewarding his allies, but I imagine the government of the Kazakh SSR is still receiving a special subsidy from the central government to help compensate for the environmental damage (plus a few unofficial subsidies to certain key officials and politicians, which quickly make their way into Swiss bank accounts or properties in London).

Less cynically, Proton has the benefit of a proven track record, meets a demonstrated market need, and, most importantly, is in-place. Like Ariane, it will see its market share eroded by Zenit, but not enough to eliminate it as a contender. Maybe a future Soviet government will consider environmental needs and worker safety over expediency and self-interest... but not this Soviet government.

Alright, good points.

Inter-Republic trade disruption is indeed reduced compared with OTL, but there are still conflicts between the Republics and between the Republics and the Centre, as seen in Mission 2K2's discussion of fighting over the profits of privatisation. The Union continues, yes, but it is nowhere near as monolithic a state as it was before the 1980s. More generally, the economy is still struggling under the transition from a command economy to a market economy. Factories used to producing a certain number of widgets simply because that's what was in the Plan were very poorly equiped to understand and adapt to market demand. That transition is happening more slowely than IOTL, but this is part of what accelerated the timeframe of the crash - the central (and Republic) governments have not been cutting back on spending nearly as brutally as the Russian government did IOTL, and so the national debt has climbed faster. In the early '90s the international markets didn't worry so much, as they experienced a rush of blood to the head as Soviet markets started to really open up for the first time, but when a shock comes along in the form of the Gazprom scandal, that enlarged pile of debt (along with poor fundemenatls, such as stubbornly low productivity, an artificially high exchange rate, and an obsolete infrastructure) triggers a stronger fear reaction, sooner, and the markets react accordingly. Hence an earlier crash, though one not quite as deep.

Well, that's how I reasoned it anyway, but I'm no economist, so I could be talking nonsense :)

On the other hand, governments not cutting back on spending so brutally means there's less of an artificial depression, so the debt/gdp ratio is likely to be better. And if governments have been spending more, the infrastructure will be less obsolete.

Now, I can imagine the Soviets in TTL borrowing too heavily in foreign currencies as high expectations mean people offer them loans at too cheap a rate and the legs coming out from under the ruble after the Gazprom scandal, which makes the debts impossible to bear, which forces a default. But that sort of currency/debt collapse won't be nearly as damaging as it was in OTL since the ruble is still legal tender in a larger trade zone than it was OTL (and most of Soviet trade happened within the Soviet Union). Russian textile mills will still be able to import Uzbek cotton, Russian and Ukrainian tea-drinkers will still be able to import Georgian tea, Georgian tea farmers will still be able to buy Russian-manufactured clothes, etc.

And of course, the space program will be particularly well off, since it has good products to sell for foreign currency and all of the things it needs to buy are priced in rubles.

A slower transition and keeping most of the FSU together as a single trade area means much better outcomes, unless the Nazarbayev regime is doing some amazingly stupid things that no-one did OTL (I would be surprised if it did - Nazarbayev did a decent job with the Kazakh transition in OTL).

(Everything I've read on the outcomes of "shock therapy" that has been written by an actual economist has been pretty damning - even in countries that have done well since the end of Communism seem to have done so despite shock therapy, not because of it.)

fasquardon
 
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fasquardon said:
On the other hand, governments not cutting back on spending so brutally means there's less of an artificial depression, so the debt/gdp ratio is likely to be better. And if governments have been spending more, the infrastructure will be less obsolete.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been nearly enough time or money to recover from decades of neglect, as spending has been less on investment than on current spending (wages and benefits), designed to lessen the impact on the Soviet worker (and the first part of Nazarbayev's strategy to keep control - part 2 being to regain control of the media and part 3 being those nice men from the KGB...). An example of the attitude to infrastructure investment in TTL's early '90s is the closure of two Energia launch pads at Baikonur in order to keep the third operational. Things are improving slowely, with some areas such as airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev getting a facelift (i.e. the bits foreign investors see), but out in the real country grey, crumbling buildings and obsolete machinery remain the norm.

fasquardon said:
Now, I can imagine the Soviets in TTL borrowing too heavily in foreign currencies as high expectations mean people offer them loans at too cheap a rate and the legs coming out from under the ruble after the Gazprom scandal, which makes the debts impossible to bear, which forces a default. But that sort of currency/debt collapse won't be nearly as damaging as it was in OTL since the ruble is still legal tender in a larger trade zone than it was OTL (and most of Soviet trade happened within the Soviet Union). Russian textile mills will still be able to import Uzbek cotton, Russian and Ukrainian tea-drinkers will still be able to import Georgian tea, Georgian tea farmers will still be able to buy Russian-manufactured clothes, etc.

Debt/GDP is certainly better than OTL, if for no other reason than Russia assumed all of the USSR's debts with only half the GDP, so the ratio ITTL c.1991 is about twice as good. However, keep in mind it's not just foreign loans we're talking about, but foreign investment... lots of Western companies eager to sell to the Soviet market and/or take advantage of cheap labour rates... who then get disillusioned at the appauling productivity ("They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work" has been the rule for decades), decaying infrastructure and corrupt institutions. Without the vocal support of the US government (who want to keep nice, stable, reliable Nazarbayev in control at all costs), it's unlikely investors would have stuck around as long as they have.

fasquardon said:
And of course, the space program will be particularly well off, since it has good products to sell for foreign currency and all of the things it needs to buy are priced in rubles.

Hmmm, I wouldn't say that. Foreign sales are increasingly important, but they're nowhere near enough to fund the entire space programme. The central government, via MOM and the Ministry of Defence through VKA, is still having to provide the vast majority of the funding needed to keep things going. Plus receipts from foreign sales don't go directly to the VKA; they'll go to the privatised (or "piratised", to use a Russian expression) companies, the Finance and Trade ministries, and a whole host of unofficial back pockets.

fasquardon said:
A slower transition and keeping most of the FSU together as a single trade area means much better outcomes, unless the Nazarbayev regime is doing some amazingly stupid things that no-one did OTL (I would be surprised if it did - Nazarbayev did a decent job with the Kazakh transition in OTL).

Well, these things are relative, but Nazarbayev's record in Kazakhstan isn't that good. Apparently per-capita GDP dropped by 26% in the 1990s. That's much better than OTL's Russia, which dropped around 40% in that period, but still not great. ITTL's USSR, as a wet-finger-in-the-air guess, I'd expect the drop to be somewhere between 20-30%.

So having said all that, I think you're broadly right, things aren't as nightmarishly bad economically as they were IOTL.
 
Mir-2: A New World
Mir-2: A New World, 1976-1999

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A Successor to Mir

Plans for a replacement of the Mir space station had been floating around since the mid 1970s, authorised as part of the same programme of “3rd generation space systems” that included the shuttle and Energia heavy launch vehicle. Initially intended as little more than a copy of Mir, even making use of Mir’s back-up DOS-8 core module, by the mid-1980s the imminent debut of the Energia rocket, as well as the challenge of President Reagan’s Space Station Freedom and Star Wars projects, meant that more ambitious options could be considered. These reached a zenith with the so-called OSETS “Orbitalni Sborochno Ekspluatatsionni Tsentr” (“Operational Centre for Orbital Assembly”), a giant space dock composed of four 75 tonne pressurised modules attached to a large truss carrying photovoltaic arrays, radiators and up to eight solar thermal reflectors to generate over 100 kW of electrical power for use in industrial production and military experiments in missile defence. The crew of 6-12 cosmonauts would be ferried to and from the station by the shuttle and a new large space capsule, Zarya, to be launched via the Zenit rocket.

On its maiden flight in 1987, Energia carried a Polyus-Skif module similar to those proposed for the new station - indeed, the module was launched with “Mir-2” painted on its side. However, by the time a guidance error in its TKS-derived upper stage had caused Polyus to impact in the Pacific, plans for Mir’s successor had already been down-scaled from four to three large modules, and the station would continue to shrink as the Soviet Union suffered through the Gorbachev Depression.

In April 1990, shortly after the ouster of Gorbachev, the decision was taken to postpone all work on Mir-2 in order to focus on the completion of the Buran and Burya shuttle orbiters. Despite this directive, NPO Energia’s Chief Designer, Yuri Semenov, continued low-level studies on a cheaper replacement for Mir, perhaps by initially evolving the existing station through adding new modules and gradually disposing of the old ones. These studies were internally given the derisive name “Mir 1.5”, but they meant that when the political winds changed again Semenov would have a proposal to hand, ready to go at short notice.

International Collaboration

Such a change came in 1992 with the election of US President Bill Clinton. Building on the groundwork laid by his Republican predecessor, Clinton sought to strengthen ties with the struggling USSR in order to bolster the Kremlin reformers against either a catastrophic disintegration at the hands of separatist forces, or a renewed power-grab from the old guard. To this end, Clinton proposed a number of direct measures to support the Soviet economy, such as pushing for increased IMF loans, as well as more indirect but targeted means, including increased cooperation in space exploration. Aside from military hardware, the space industry was the one sector of the economy where the Soviets could claim to be globally competitive, with their liquid rocket engines in particular recognised as being the most advanced in the world.

As well as agreements on access to Soviet launch vehicles for US commercial payloads and exploratory talks into US firms building Soviet engines under license, there were further discussions on joint manned space flights. The US Space Station Freedom project had undergone the same process of down-sizing as Mir-2, and by 1993 had been reduced to an abbreviated version unaffectionately nicknamed “Space Station Fred”. With both the US and Soviet stations struggling for funding, talks were held between NASA and VKA on merging their two projects to form a single “International Space Station”. However, despite the end of the Cold War, hawks in both the US Congress and the USSR Supreme Soviet spoke out loudly against such close collaboration with “the enemy”.

Although this opposition killed the chances of a joint station, it did raise the profile of manned spaceflight as an area of continuing ‘friendly’ competition between the current and former superpowers, and active cooperation in fact continued, albeit at a lower level. When the US Congress narrowly approved appropriations for the so-called “Option A-3” redesign of Freedom (now called “Space Station Alpha”) in 1994, it included an option to use Soviet Soyuz capsules as an interim lifeboat [1]. This would allow Alpha to be permanently manned from as early as the fourth assembly flight, rather than waiting for the 16th assembly flight and development of NASA's own Assured Crew Return Vehicle. The FY-1995 funding act therefore released $50 million for Boeing and RKK Energia to begin studying the modifications that would be needed to allow Soyuz to be delivered to Alpha’s 28 degree orbit by the US Space Shuttle, as well as extending its dormant in-orbit lifetime to up to 2 years. It also authorised a series of joint US-Soviet missions in which NASA astronauts would travel to Mir via Soyuz, whilst Soviet cosmonauts would be given berths on the American shuttle. Also planned were a series of dockings between US shuttles and Mir (with the Soviets paid to supply a suitable docking adapter module), but the retirement of Mir in 1997 meant that the visit of Atlantis in 1996 was the only such mission flown.

In addition to the Soviets supplying Alpha with a lifeboat, Moscow-based Fili KKP [2] proposed to sell to NASA one of the two unflown 77K modules, originally built for Mir, to act as a service module and space tug for the station. However, despite the fact that this would have allowed a man-tended capability for Alpha from the first launch, US officials were uncomfortable with putting a Soviet component on the station’s critical path, and so this proposal was rejected. However, the Soviets found a more receptive audience in Europe, with ESA proposing to share the costs of completing a 77K in exchange for hosting European experiments and the Soviets providing an annual crew slot for ESA astronauts to visit Mir-2. Similar in concept to ESA’s cancelled Man Tended Free Flyer, this Euro-Soviet Technological Complex (ESTC) would spend much of its time separated from the Mir-2 station, docking occasionally to return samples and have experiments swapped out. ESA had already agreed to provide the European Robotic Arm for the Soviet station, and were planning several astronaut visits to Mir in the coming years under the Euromir programme, making their commitment to Mir-2 a natural extension of the evolving Euro-Soviet relationship [3].

So it was that by late 1994 the shape of Mir-2 had begun to crystallise. The core of the station was once more to be the DOS-8 module originally built as Mir’s back-up, now launched into a 65 degree orbit. This would be supported by a number of small specialised modules that could be swapped out as needed. Unlike on Mir, these additional modules would not be self-contained spacecraft, but would draw their power and other utilities from a large central beam housing solar generators, radiators and engines. The initial DOS-8 core and the European lab would go up on either separate Proton or Energia-M launches, or together on a single Energia-M, with the rest of the components to be launched and assembled by Buran and Burya.

Authorisation to proceed with Mir-2 was formally given by presidential decree in January 1995. Work immediately got underway at the Fili KKP factory outside Moscow to refurbish the long-dormant DOS-8 and 77KSO [4] modules and fit them with the systems needed to turn them into the Mir-2 Base Block and ESTC respectively. However, just a few months later the entire project was put in doubt as the Soviet Financial Crisis hit.

With the advent of the Crisis, by June 1995 work on DOS-8 had come to an almost complete halt. Refurbishment of the ESTC (funded by ESA under a contract denominated in US dollars) continued at a reduced level, as did development of the Soyuz-ACRV for NASA, but the rest of the Mir-2 project was paused. In September 1995, in response to the crisis, the station underwent a final redesign to reduce as far as possible the number of expensive Energia and Energia-M launches. The shuttle-launched 37K-based lab modules would now be replaced by smaller, cheaper modules sharing a design with the pressurised compartments of the Progress M2 cargo vehicle. The node, lab and airlock modules would now all be launched by Zenit and ferried to the station by modified Progress M2 service modules, a considerably cheaper option than relying on the shuttles for a ride. The large central truss was still planned to be carried via shuttle in two separate flights, but the design left open the option for the sections to be launched on Energia-M, or split into smaller chunks and carried by Zenit. The initial DOS-8 core and the European lab would now go up on Proton. The orbital plane of the station was also changed, over European objections, to the same 51.6 degree inclination as Mir. This would increase the mass that could be launched to the station in a single go, hopefully reducing the number of flights that would be needed to keep the station supplied. It would also allow a postponement of plans to human-rate Zenit, which would have been necessary if the Soyuz spacecraft were to reach a 65 degree orbit with a full crew of three plus the heavy APAS-89 docking system. The cheap and reliable R-7-derived Soyuz rocket would therefore continue its long role as the Soviet Union’s primary crew launcher, alongside occasional shuttle visits that would temporarily boost the station’s crew to ten or more.

Assembly Begins

Work on DOS-8 re-started in February 1996 and proceeded relatively smoothly throughout the rest of the year. In December the module was handed over from Fili KKP to RKK Energia and shipped to Baikonur’s Site 2 to undergo final outfitting and tests prior to launch, which was now targeted for mid-1997. However, electrical testing conducted at the MIK 2B facility in April uncovered a number of serious defects that would postpone the launch date into 1998. Investigators eventually discovered that technicians working on the Energia-owned DOS-8’s power system had skipped important component-level testing as Fili prioritised work on their own ESTC for the dollar-paying Europeans over that of their Soviet colleagues. The investigation would eventually lead to criminal charges against several Fili mid-level managers, whilst many of the Moscow-based technicians found themselves sharing the punishment by being exiled to Baikonur for six months to fix the module on-site.

By March 1998 fitting out of DOS-8 had been completed and the module was moved from MIK 2B to Building 92-1 to undergo final preparations and integration. Fueling of its hypergolic propulsion system was carried out in the first week of April, after which the station module was installed under its fairing and mated with the Proton-K carrier rocket. The integrated stack was then rolled horizontally by rail car to Pad 24 at Site 81, where it was raised to vertical on 22nd April 1998. Two days later the Proton-K lit its engines and lifted the first module of the Soviet Union’s new space station to orbit.

With the initial operations and check-out showing no problems, the path was cleared for the first crewed mission to Mir-2. This would be Soyuz TMA-1 carrying cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Gennady Padalka, launched from Baikonur’s LC-1 on 5th June 1998. Although officially marking the first launch of the Soyuz TMA variant (where the “A” referred to the APAS-89 docking system), this spacecraft was virtually identical to the “Rescue Soyuz” spacecraft used for the Soyuz TM-16/Burya docking mission and held on the pad in case of emergency during Buran’s manned launches. Soyuz TMA-1 included some modernised avionics and other minor upgrades, but was otherwise the same reliable spaceship that had supported Mir-1 over the previous dozen years. This heritage meant that, in a departure from established Soviet practice, the new ship was to be manned on its first launch (although many observers attributed this decision more to the general shortage of funds than to confidence in the equipment).

Aside from proving the new Soyuz variant, the main objective of the Soyuz TMA-1 mission (forming the first part of Mir-2 EO-1) was to complete the on-orbit check-out of the Mir-2 Base Block and prepare for the upcoming assembly missions. To this end the space in Soyuz normally used for a third cosmonaut was filled with 85 kg of equipment and experiments that had not been ready for installation before DOS-8’s final preparations. Musabayev and Padalka soon got to work in their role as space handymen, powering-up and testing equipment, as well as making occasional field repairs - a role that had become wearyingly familiar to veterans of the last years of the Mir-1 space station.

The next visitor to the station was a Progress M2 cargo ship. Launched by Zenit from Baikonur, Progress M2 took advantage of that rocket’s greater throw-weight to carry an expanded pressurised cargo module, whilst the redesigned service module used common propellant tanks both for its own needs and to refuel Mir-2. This was the second mission for the new spacecraft, Progress M2-1 having docked with Mir-1 on a test flight in late 1997 before committing that station to its final journey. This new launch, designated Progress M2-SO1, saw the pressurised cargo module replaced with the first of Mir-2’s docking and airlock modules, SO-1 or “Pirs” (Pier) [5].

The launch proceeded without a hitch, as Zenit once more demonstrated the reliability that was helping to make it such a popular choice in the international commercial launch market. Two days after lift-off, on 5th July 1998, Progress M2-SO1 successfully docked at the Mir-2 Base Block’s aft port, beginning the long process of expanding the new station. Over the following week Musabayev and Padalka unloaded a tonne of equipment and provisions that had been shipped up with Pirs, taking special care to check out the two Orlan-DMA spacesuits that had been included in the manifest. Other tests involved a refueling of the Base Block’s propellant tanks by the Progress M2 service module via pipelines installed in Pirs, a capability that would be vital in keeping the station’s tanks topped up over its lifetime. With these tests completed, the Progress M2 service module was used to boost the station’s orbit before detaching from Pirs on 30th August and de-orbiting for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific.

Settling In

On 18th September 1998 Musabayev and Padalka were joined on the station by the crew of Soyuz TMA-2: Viktor Afanasyev, Valery Korzun, and Spanish guest cosmonaut Pedro Duque [6]. The relief crew became the first to dock at Pir’s aft APAS-89 docking port, and the new module would continue to feature prominently in the mission as it doubled as temporary sleeping quarters for Afanasyev and Korzun as the five crew members shared accommodations on the cramped station.

ESA astronaut Duque would spend his time on the station setting up long-term experiments that were planned to transfer to the ESTC module (since christened “Magellan” [7]) upon its anticipated launch the following year. Duque also conducted a number of television broadcasts for both European and Soviet TV networks as part of a broader outreach campaign. After a week aboard Mir-2, Duque joined Musabayev and Padalka as Soyuz TMA-1 undocked from the forward axial port and headed for a landing in the Kazakh SSR, formally marking the end of Mir-2 EO-1 and the start of EO-2.

Following a relocation of Soyuz TMA-2 to the axial Base Block port, EO-2 saw the first spacewalks of the Mir-2 era, with Afanasyev and Korzun making use of Pirs’ large airlock to install external experiments and test techniques for assembling truss structures. These latter involved opening both airlock doors so that a long frame could be assembly by the cosmonauts without them needing to leave the Pirs module, with the ends of the assembled beam protruding from each side of the module.

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The most important addition to the station during EO-2 came in early January 1999, with the launch of Progress M2-USM1. This Zenit-launched mission heralded the arrival of the first of two planned Universal Docking Modules, nodes equipped with up to eight APAS-89 docking ports that would form the connecting hubs linking Mir-2s various modules together. USM-1, named “Yedinstvo” (Unity), was particularly important as its two lateral mid-point ports would be the attach points for the station’s central truss, the Science Power Platform (NEP), which would provide power and cooling services to the rest of the growing station.

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With Yedinstvo successfully docked and unloaded, the crew of EO-2 began preparations for handing over to EO-3 at the end of January. This new crew consisted of Vasily Tsibliyev and Aleksandr Kaleri, joined in their Soyuz TMA-3 capsule by American “space tourist” Dennis Tito. Tito had paid for his flight as the world’s first “space tourist” through MirCorp, a private company that had been set up several years earlier with the aim of purchasing the Mir-1 station from the Soviet government upon its retirement. Although that deal never went through, MirCorp was able to arrange for private individuals to purchase a ride in the third seat on Soyuz flights to Mir-2, and so spend around a week in orbit [8].

Tito returned to Earth (twenty million dollars lighter, but otherwise unharmed) with Afanasyev and Korzun aboard Soyuz TMA-2, vacating Pir’s aft docking port. A few weeks later Tsibliyev and Kaleri would relocate their own Soyuz TMA-3 spacecraft to Pirs, freeing up Yedinstvo’s axial port to support the next assembly mission: the long-awaited arrival of Buran at the station.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++​

[1] IOTL The President was given four options: A1 (downsized, simplified Freedom using a Lockheed Bus1 propulsion module), A2 (the same as A1 but with specialised thrusters on the truss instead of Bus1), B (basically Freedom with the assembly sequence slightly re-jigged) or C (a monolithic can launched on a one-off Shuttle-C, similar in some respects to the station from Eyes Turned Skyward, but without the truss). IOTL all those options were made redundant by the agreement to bring the Russians on-board, though A2 was the front runner. ITTL the President (or rather his advisors) gets the same set of options… and opt to invent a fifth “A3”, which can be considered the equivalent of OTL’s ISS “US Core Complete” (i.e. the bare minimum number of US components we can get away with and still meet our obligations to partners).


[2] The Fili Space Production Company (Fili KKP) is the result of a merger between the former KB Salyut (part of NPO Energia between 1981-1988) and the Khrunichev Machine-Building plant, both of which are located in the Moscow suburb of Fili. KB Salyut had previously been known as OKB-23, or the Fili branch of Chelomei’s OKB-52 bureau, with the Khrunichev Plant long having assigned to build OKB-23’s designs.

The merger also went ahead IOTL, as both KB Salyut and Khrunichev found themselves competing to sell the same product (the Proton rocket) to foreign customers. The merger IOTL created GKNPTs Khrunichev in 1993 as an independent company outside the authority of any government ministry or the Russian Space Agency. This special status allegedly came about due to the fact that President Yeltsin’s daughter worked for the company, in an uncanny echo of Nikita Khrushchev's patronage of OKB-52 due to Chelomei hiring his son.

ITTL as IOTL, the merged company is privatised in the early 1990s (aka “flogged off to its management for a criminally low price” as part of the policy of getting as many enterprises as possible off the state’s books to qualify for desperately needed IMF loans), but ITTL Fili KKP remains under the legal supervision of the All-Union Space Agency.


[3] ESA interest in joining Mir-2 is common with OTL, where the 1992 ESA ministerial meeting in Grenada approved work on the European Robotic Arm for Mir-2, a joint ESA-Russian spacesuit design, and explored options for the former Columbus Man Tended Free Flyer to operate in conjunction with Mir-2. At the time it was seen as a hedge against uncertain US political commitment to Freedom, which the US Senate came within a single vote of cancelling in 1993.

IOTL the spacesuit and MTFF were cancelled outright, but the ERA is still planned to form part of the Russian Segment of the ISS, to be flown to the station with the much-delayed Nauka Multipurpose Lab Module. Like TTL’s ESTC, OTL’s Nauka is based upon a 77K module.


[4] IOTL, 77KSO became the Spekr module of Mir, launched in 1995 with US support and experiments. The module was famously rendered uninhabitable in the summer of 1997 when it was hit by Progress M-34 as a result of a money-saving experiment in manual remote piloting. ITTL the diversion of funding from Mir to Buran/Energia in the early ‘90s means the module is still sitting at the factory in Fili, alongside the hull of 77KSI (OTL’s Priroda).


[5] Note that, although the design is the same, this is not the same module as OTL’s Pirs. That module was ITTL used for its intended purpose, as the SM docking module for orbiter 1.02 (Burya).


[6] IOTL Duque did not get his first spaceflight until 2003 aboard STS-95. Here he gets an early shot as part of the extended ESA-VKA “EuroMir” programme. In both timelines he was selected as an ESA astronaut in 1992. He is counted as the first Spanish astronaut, although in both timelines he is preceded by NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who although born in Madrid is a naturalised citizen of the US.


[7] This means of course that the module shares a name with the famous Venus probe, but as Europe felt no shame in naming its navigation system “Galileo” I figure the allure of naming a space station module after a second famous European navigator was too compelling. ITTL the equivalent module on Alpha remains “Columbus”, as per OTL’s ISS module.


[8] MirCorp existed IOTL for much the same reasons, although it would be another firm, Space Adventures, that would ultimately give Tito his shot IOTL, flying to the ISS in 2001. ITTL the earlier demise of Mir-1, plus less involvement (and so opposition) from NASA (an OTL ISS partner, but nothing to do with TTL’s Mir-2), has moved up the timetable by several years.

IOTL it was MirCorp that paid for the mission that saw Aleksandr Kaleri fly to Mir with Sergei Zalyotin in 2000 to briefly re-activate the station. ITTL Kaleri’s participation is fully funded by the Soviet government.
 
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So no Zarya, Priroda or Nauka ITTL? And are the Progress-2 derived modules analogus to OTL NEM?
Also, what does KKP stand for? I assume that KK stands for Space Corporation, but what about P?
 
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