Starry Skies Network

Very soon—perhaps by the time you’ve read this article—Russia will launch the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars. Whether you’re interested in planetary science or human spaceflight there is good reason to hope that this mission succeeds, but also reason to expect it to fail.

The upper stages of Soyuz launch vehicles similar to the one that malfunctioned and led to the recent loss of a Progress space freighter will be returned to their producer for additional checks, including the upper stages of Soyuz ST rockets at the Kourou Space Center in Latin America.

One of the little-noticed secrets of the worldwide launch industry is in the amount of Russian hardware and design experience that has gone into non-Russian rockets – including a good chunk of the U.S. industry. There also might be a bit of scandal involved, as one Russian manufacturer is accused of selling engines to United Launch Alliance for half price.

Mikhail Kornienko, a flight engineer on the International Space Station, wants to go back up.

Russia will build a national aerospace defense shield by the end of 2011, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security Viktor Ozerov told reporters on Tuesday in the cosmonauts’ training center near Moscow. He believes that a combined aerospace defense force will cooperate more effectively with NATO’s European anti-missile defense system.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday Russia should develop its own space exploration program.
“I believe this is a very important topic, even in terms of our scientific ambitions,” Medvedev said. “If we do not do this, we will fall behind.”

Work at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was suspended Sunday on the 50th anniversary of a disaster that killed more than 70 people at the site.

New onboard digital command and control systems have helped increase the payload of Russia’s manned Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft by 70 kg, the head of the Energia space corporation said on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ruled out a possibility of leasing the Vostochny cosmodrome.
“Russia ranks first in the world in space rocket launchings; therefore, we do not have to lease. We will fulfill our obligations that exist today and the obligations that will arise tomorrow.

All necessary decisions are in place for launching the construction of the spaceport Vostochny in the Amur region in 2011, the head of the federal space agency (Roscosmos), Anatoly Perminov, said at a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council devoted to the sketch of a future high-capacity next-generation space rocket complex of middle-class for the spaceport Vostochny.