The Council of Chief Designers approved the schedule for the creation of the Soyuz-5 space rocket complex. This was announced on March 1 by the press service of the state corporation "Roscosmos".
"During the work of the Council of Chief Designers, a decision was signed defining further work on the implementation of the project: the general schedule for the creation of the Soyuz-5 space rocket complex was approved and instructions were defined for the enterprises of the state corporation Roscosmos, "the Roscosmos website reports.
Earlier, in February, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that the start of the reconstruction of the launch pad for the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle at Baikonur will begin in the summer.
On February 6, the chief designer of NPO Energomash, Pyotr Levochkin, said that for the first time in Russia, a rocket engine was designed completely digitally without the use of drawings. He noted that the RD-171MV engine for the Soyuz-5 rocket was created entirely in digital documentation.
In December 2020, it was reported that NPO Energomash (Roscosmos enterprise) conducted the first fire test of the world's most powerful liquid-propellant engine RD-171MV for the first stage of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle, also referred to as the"tsar-engine".
The Soyuz-5 medium-class launch vehicle began production at the end of May 2019. The Samara rocket and space center "Progress"is engaged in production.
The Soyuz-5 (Irtysh) is a two-stage rocket. It will be able to put cargo weighing up to 17 tons into orbit. When creating the engine for the "Irtysh" — RD-171MV — for the first time in the industry, digital design and production is used.