“Energy” is awaiting the sunset of the Russian space monopoly
The dominant position of the Russian spacecraft to the international market of space transportation may soon come to an end, says the report of the rocket-space Corporation “Energy” for the fourth quarter of 2017. The main threats to Russian dominance in space are projects to launch private spacecraft of the American companies Boeing and SpaceX.
The report was published a week after the successful testing of the company SpaceX super-heavy cargo rocket, the Falcon Heavy. At the moment the company is Elon musk already is delivering cargo to the ISS with cargo Dragon missiles and continues to develop in this direction.
August 2018 unmanned test scheduled passenger missiles of this class — Crew Dragon, and in December needs to happen first manned space flight.
In the case of the success of the program Crew Dragon will be used for manned flights in earth orbit and tourist excursions around the moon. In the fall of 2018 and is scheduled the first manned flight of a private rocket Cockpit, developed by the Boeing company.
The authors of the report concluded that the activities of private companies has already led to a reduction in the number of launches, “Roscosmos”, although for some time this effect will be mitigated through the commitment of Russia for delivery of astronauts and cargo to the ISS. However, the “in connection with ongoing plans of the American commercial companies to build manned spacecraft Russia’s monopoly on the market of manned space flight is projected to be short-lived, and competition will increase”, — summarized in the report. To reverse this situation could rival Crew Dragon, but the launch of the Russian manned spacecraft “Federation” slated for 2024.
See also: Hero meme about nerds participated in the launch of Tesla car in the space