{"id":184445,"date":"2025-08-29T11:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184445\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T11:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:34:11","slug":"investing-in-space-made-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184445\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in Space: Made in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNBC’s Investing in Space newsletter offers a\u00a0view into the business of space exploration and privatization, delivered straight to your inbox.\u00a0Sign up to receive future editions.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Soyuz TMA-19M rocket launches into space from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on Dec. 15, 2015.<\/p>\n

NASA\/Joel Kowsky | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Overview: Made in Russia<\/p>\n

Smartphone enthusiasts can pick up fresh gear nearly every year \u2014 rocket aficionados usually face a longer wait.<\/p>\n

For watchers of Russia-made launch vehicles, the clock’s now ticking down until December, when Moscow-headquartered state space agency Roscosmos still intends to carry out its first test launch of the Soyuz-5 rocket.<\/p>\n

“Yes, we have plans for December, everything remains in force,” the Roscosmos Head Dmitry Bakanov said Aug. 22,\u00a0according to Russian state news agency Tass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The rocket, which is expected to become fully operational in 2028, is unlikely to shock by way of novelty. A decade in the making under the development name “Feniks” and popularly known as Irtysh, the Soyuz-5 is widely viewed as a medium-class launch vehicle that reincarnates the Ukraine-manufactured Zenit-2 rocket.<\/p>\n

Moscow plans for the all-Russian Soyuz-5 to be the latest member of Russia’s workhorse Soyuz rocket family. It will be\u00a0equipped with RD-171MV engines<\/a>\u00a0built by NPO Energomash, which former Roscosmos chief \u00a0Dmitry Rogozin praised as having “no equals in the world in terms of power” back in 2019. Powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, the Soyuz-5 will be able to balance a roughly\u00a017-ton payload.<\/p>\n

If it meets the December deadline, the Soyuz-5 test launch will be no small feat for Roscosmos, which has faced funding shortages since the February 2022 start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The space agency had\u00a0lost 180 billion rubles<\/a>\u00a0($2.24 billion) by August 2024 and planned to put up non-core assets\u00a0worth more than 11.4 billion rubles<\/a>\u00a0up for sale to shore up its activities.<\/p>\n

The war in Ukraine marked a turning point for Russia’s space sector. The European Space Agency severed ties with Roscosmos in 2022, ending the two institutions’ partnership over the ExoMars rover mission and further lunar ventures. The breaking of ties also initially raised question marks over Moscow’s continued cooperation to maintain the International Space Station.\u00a0Critically for the Soyuz line, the dissolution of this relationship also saw Roscosmos\u00a0pull out<\/a>\u00a0from the ESA space center in Kourou, French Guiana \u2014 the pad for 27 Soyuz launches, which carried the likes of OneWeb and Galileo satellites \u00a0between 2011-2022.<\/p>\n

Since then, Roscosmos has switched gears and is looking to launch the Soyuz-5 from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Astana is trying to leverage\u00a0to kick start its own space industry<\/a>\u00a0and attract foreign operators and investment. The Russian space agency, which has been using the Baikonur facility since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is paying Kazakhstan $115 million annually to lease the complex until 2050.<\/p>\n

Getting a new rocket model to the launch pad and off the ground is no easy feat. The heavily mediatized successes and explosive failures of SpaceX’s test flights of its giant Starship \u2014\u00a0which pulled off a successful 10th trial launch this week, after a series of fiery setbacks earlier in the year <\/strong>\u2014 show as much. Chinese firm Landspace is also\u00a0targeting an\u00a0orbital debut for the Zhuque-3 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Russia itself\u00a0test launched<\/a>\u00a0its first post-Soviet era rocket model, the Angara-A5, in June last year, following two aborted launch attempts. But as the space industry increasingly progresses\u00a0toward more cost-effective reusable rockets, the real test for Russian innovation will come once Moscow completes development of the Soyuz-7, known as the Amur-SPG \u2014 a methane-fueled launch vehicle, intended as a more cost-effective substitute to Russia’s workhorse rocket Soyuz-2.\u00a0Its\u00a0first stage\u00a0is\u00a0designed to be reused up to 50 times. As of January, Roscosmos is\u00a0expected to finalize the rocket by 2030<\/a>, with its launch site under construction at Russia’s \u00a0Vostochny Cosmodrome.<\/p>\n

What’s up<\/p>\n