TSAMTO, December 3. Roscosmos specialists will begin testing the reusable stage of the Krylo-SV launch vehicle next year, RIA Novosti reports, citing a source in the rocket and space industry.
A reusable stage of the Krylo-SV light launch vehicle has been developed in Russia since 2019. It is planned that it will be able to return from space, descending in horizontal flight with landing both on the runway and on the ground.
"One of the demonstrators of the reusable stage of the Krylo-SV light launch vehicle will be equipped with a landing gear and a turbojet engine, as well as a nose fairing, like an airplane, which will allow it to take off, fly and then return to the airfield. In fact, it will be a UAV created on the basis of a future rocket stage to test the flight characteristics of the stage in the atmosphere," the agency interlocutor said.
He specified that one of the military airfields will be the venue for the tests.
"The timing of the tests has not yet been precisely determined, preliminarily, the first atmospheric flight of the demonstrator stage should take place in the second half of 2022," the source said.
The interlocutor of RIA Novosti added that the reusable stage of the launch vehicle will be equipped with a rectangular wing, which, according to experts, will be effective both when braking the stage in dense layers of the atmosphere, during descent from space, and in subsequent air flight.
"The reusable stage, which has the possibility of atmospheric flight, will allow launching the Krylo-SV with a wide range of inclinations, since it will be able to return to the cosmodrome after flying hundreds of kilometers," the agency source explained.
He recalled that the developer of the carrier rocket "Krylo-SV" with the returnable first stage is KB IM. Bartini (part of TsNIIMash, the head scientific institute of Roscosmos).
