Replacement for Soyuz Will be a Reusable Capsule

December 29, 2014 – Russia has been working on a Soyuz capsule replacement for the last five years. Today, Vitaly Lopota, former chief of Energiya, one of Russia’s space technology suppliers, indicated that the cost of development is $105 million USD.

Designed to be partially reusable, the Soyuz replacement, a 20-ton spacecraft, will be able to transport a human crew of six to the International Space Station (ISS) should Russia remain in the program after 2021. It is also capable of sending a crew of four on an expedition to the Moon. The current Soyuz is used both as a resupply and crewed spacecraft capable of servicing the ISS. Its crew complement is three.

The reusable part of the new capsule will be the reentry module. According to Lopota it will be used ten times. Both engine and launch vehicles will be capable of one-time use only.

Originally Russia was collaborating with the European Space Agency on this project. But the Crimean crisis and subsequent disruptions in Eastern Ukraine seem to have altered plans. There was no mention of European collaboration in this week’s announcement.

The capsule strangely resembles the NASA Orion, Boeing CST-100 and SpaceX Dragon2 spacecraft as you can see from the picture below.These images were the first unveiled back in 2008. With Russia proceeding independently the designs may be further altered.

An unmanned test flight was originally planned for next year with human flight tests starting in 2018. But now it appears to have been pushed further into the future with it taking place no earlier than 2021. The first human onboard test is now scheduled for 2024.

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