According to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, Russian developers have corrected the shortcomings previously identified in the Angara-A5 rocket. Now the carrier corresponds to the declared characteristics.
In the future, the Angara-A5 heavy launch vehicle should become one of the main tools for putting a payload into orbit for Russia. That is why its testing program is so important.
I must say, the developers systematically correct previously identified shortcomings. According to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, the rocket has now confirmed its capabilities. "The characteristics of the Angara already meet all the requirements of the main customer — the Ministry of Defense," RIA Novosti quotes Borisov as saying.
This is an important stage of the program. Last year, the Deputy Prime Minister said that after the first launch, the characteristics of the rocket were not confirmed.
Recall that the carrier of the heavy class "Angara-A5" performed the first launch in its history on December 23, 2014. In general, the launch was successful. As a load then used inseparable from the upper stage "Breeze-M" dimensional mass model of the spacecraft.
The second launch of the Angara-A5 rocket, after numerous postponements, was completed recently, namely, on December 14. Shortly after launch, the orbital module with the Briz-M upper stage and a cargo-weight model of the spacecraft successfully separated from the third stage.
The second launch of the Angara-A5 was also the third for representatives of the Angara family: the rocket (version of the Angara-1.2 PP) performed its very first launch on July 9, 2014.
At different times in Russia, various options for the development of the family were worked out. In January of this year, it became known that the Space Agency and the Ministry of Defense [...] agreed on the appearance of a promising carrier with an increased payload capacity based on the Angara-A5: the rocket received the designation "Angara-A5M". It is assumed that this carrier will give the defense department expanded capabilities for putting satellites into orbit.
According to the data given earlier, when launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome, the rocket will allow you to put cargo weighing up to 27 tons into a low reference orbit. In the basic version, this weight is 24 tons. Even more powerful than the" A5M "version received the designation "A5B": it will be able to put up to 38 tons of cargo into a low reference orbit.
At the same time, Russia, as far as can be judged, does not refuse to create a full-fledged super-heavy launch vehicle, which could be used to launch manned expeditions to the natural satellite of our planet.