Everyone seems to be launching and landing rockets these days.
Last week, China joined the club from countries that have launched an orbital mission and brought their booster back to Earth safely, which is just the beginning of public and private initiatives in that country aggressively pushing rocket reuse. Also in Asia, the Japanese space agency has been performing jump testsand Honda recently made vertical reuse tests.
In the United States, of course, SpaceX launches and lands reusable rockets every few days. Blue Origin, although its New Glenn booster is temporarily grounded, has also demonstrated the ability to land and relaunch a large orbital booster. Other American companies, including Stoke Space, Rocket Lab and Relativity Space, are making credible progress toward partially or fully reusable rockets.
So what about Russia, which has a long history of spaceflight and conducted the world’s first orbital launch nearly seven decades ago? There was some news from Russian space officials this week, but it doesn’t exactly boost confidence.
Waiting on Amur
It has been almost six years since the state-backed Russian space corporation Roscosmos plans revealed develop a reusable rocket called “Amur-LNG”. Clearly designed in response to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Amur was intended to have a reusable first stage, methane-powered engines, and be capable of delivering 10.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in reusable mode.
At the time, Russian space officials said they planned to launch the rocket in 2026, meaning basically right now.
This week, in an interview In business publication RBC, a senior Russian rocket official provided new information about the development schedule of the Amur rocket. Dmitry Baranov, Deputy Director General of Rocket Programs at Roscosmos, said attention is currently focused on the development of a “demonstrator” for the first stage of the rocket.
