Components of the advanced heavy Angara rocket carrier will be made of polymer composites, ARMS-TASS reports. It has been stated by the CEO of Obninsk-based Technologiya, Oleg Komissar.
"The share of composites in Angara will be 20% higher as compared to Proton-M", - he said. – The material properties will be improved".
Komissar believes that the increase of composites’ share in the structure of rocket carriers is “modern stable trend”. "Composites provide great performance attributes and colossal weight-saving", - he noted. According to him, the cost of delivery of 1 kg of payload into orbit is “about $20 thousand that is why the weight-saving lowers operational costs". "Carbon allows achieving such results", - the CEO of Technologiya said, noting that the density of carbon is twice lower as compared to aluminum; it is light and as durable as steel.
"The head end and upper compartments of Angara and Proton-M rocket carriers are made of carbon", - Komissar noted. According to him, the composite casing performs as the acoustic protection for the payload, because a powerful acoustical action takes place during launch of the rocket carrier (about 100 dB) and the spacecraft is fragile.
"Thus, while using the aluminum and fiberglass, we need to use mattress in order to provide acoustic protection and these mattress with a thickness of 0.5 m increase weight and decrease space available for the payload, - Komissar explained. – And that is not good".
He said that Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center is developing new low-drag fairings with an augmented diameters intended for heavy rocket carriers in cooperation with Technologiya. "It is a promising area of our activities and I believe that we would be able to proceed to large-sized fairings in two years", - Komissar underlined.
He noted that the current diameter of the fairings is 4 m, while the new fairing will have a diameter of 5 m. "It is the next generation, new payload, because the current fairings allow placing 6 tons of cargo into orbit and the new ones will allow delivering of about 8 tons", - he said.
The CEO also said that the share of composites in the structure of advanced spacecraft is at least 33% of the ship’s total weight. "For example, Spektr-M spacecraft has a 10-meters antenna, - Komissar said. – The metal construction of such size would have scorched due to temperature differential so it would have been unable to receive the signal. That is why we use carbon".
The specialists, he said, may match the carbon’s structure in such way that it would have zero coefficient of dilation and such part would not change its size under conditions of any temperature differential. "This is the main feature of size-stable construction, - Komissar said. – We have started the studies in this area in 90s and at present we are the leading enterprise, the largest developers and manufacturers of the size-stable constructions for all the Russian spacecraft".
