Development work on Russia's Korona reusable rocket to begin in 2026 - Roscosmos

MOSCOW. Oct 30 (Interfax) - The Makeyev State Rocket Center's Scientific and Technical Council has confirmed the possibility of creating a fully reusable Korona launch vehicle, Roscosmos said in a statement on Thursday.

"Development work will begin in 2026," the statement said.

The Makeyev State Rocket Center held an expanded meeting, at which its Scientific and Technical Council reviewed key technologies for creating a fully reusable launch vehicle, Roscosmos said.

"The results of tests and calculations have confirmed the possibility of implementing the project," the state corporation said.

Roscosmos said on March 28, 2023 that the Makeyev State Rocket Center had begun work on confirming key technologies for building a reusable single-stage Korona launch vehicle.

The state corporation said at the time that the main advantages of the Korona launch vehicle under development were the low cost of payload launch due to the full reusability of the system, high launch rates, the ability not only to launch but also to return cargo from orbit with a weight commensurate with the launch weight, as well as to refuel and repair facilities in orbit.

Makeyev State Rocket Center Scientific Director and Russian Academy of Sciences' Academician Vladimir Degtyar said on February 9, 2023 that research work on the creation of a space vehicle with a reusable Korona launch vehicle would be undertaken in 2023-2025 jointly with Roscosmos enterprises. The launch vehicle will have an extremely low cost of launching a payload into orbit, and the rocket can be used up to 100 times, he said.

Degtyar said that the rocket will have a launch weight of 302-315 tonnes, and will be 42.15 meters high. The mass of the payload launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome will be 5.5 tonnes with a single-launch scheme, and 10.6 tonnes with a two-launch scheme.

The Makeyev State Rocket Center has been developing the Korona launch vehicle since 1997. As reported, the project is an initiative development of the center and is conducted at the expense of its own resources.