There is a slight problem with the Russian spacecraft project proposed by Russia.

More than half a century ago, Russia developed its latest spacecraft to transport humans in orbit: the venerable Soyuz capsule, which still operates today in orbit between Russian and Russian cosmonauts. American astronauts. However, over the past decade, the Russian space program has designed and developed a new vehicle, called the Federation.

Like the NASA Orion spacecraft, the Federation's capsule has suffered from delays and cost overruns for more than a decade of development. But when he flew, probably as early as 2022 aboard a Soyuz-5 rocket for a test flight, Federation would be the rare human vehicle designed to fly beyond the low Earth orbit.

However, Russian sources report a problem with the vehicle's evacuation system. The federation will take off from the new cosmodrome Vostochny, located in the far east of Russia, about 600 km from the Pacific Ocean. In certain scenarios, during which the Federation's abandonment of launching system would move it away from the rocket in an emergency, the Federation could slip into the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

"When launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the Federation spacecraft is facing a huge problem if the launch is abandoned," said Igor Verkhovskiy, Business Development Manager for Crewed Programs and Low Earth Orbit Satellites. at RKK Energia for Russia's space program.

"We could end up in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, where we do not have high speed ships belonging to naval or civilian fleets," said a Russian official. It could take us several days to reach the place of the accident, at the risk of losing the "A translation of the Russian press articles was provided to Ars by Robinson Mitchell.

A lunar vehicle?

It is still unclear what stage Russia is in the developing Federation and its essential systems to support long-range space flights into distant spaces. Russian press sources have previously reported that the construction of the pressure vessel, which provides the solid structure of the vehicle, only started in May. Although the Russian authorities cite a launch date for 2022, this would seem unachievable if the work on the first pressure vessel did indeed start only a few months ago.

Earlier this year, Dimitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, demanded changes to RKK Energia's leadership, particularly in areas involved in the design of the Federation's spaceship, possibly due to delays and problems since then. the launch of the program more than ten years ago.

Eventually, Russia intends to use the Federation spacecraft for crewed missions in lunar orbit, in the same way that NASA plans to use its Orion spacecraft. However, the legitimacy of Russia's plans to send humans into space, and the Moon, raises serious questions.