Kliper

Hi there,
I was slightly worried about the few visitors of my blog, and so I decided to write in english sometimes, so that guys from around the World could enjoy and understand my opinions about... everything! Let's start with a summary of an article of Euroavia News, wich I am a reader (and, of course, an Euroavia member): the Kliper! The next generation of Russian (and European?) spacecrafts is a lifting-body, the Kliper (Clipper), announced by Rosaviakosmos in the beginning of 2004. It is designed to carry 6 cosmonauts and 500 Kg of cargo, with a volume of 20 cubic meters, while the "actual" Soyouz has only 10.5 cubic meters. It can be easily docked to the ISS, russian rockets and, perhaps, to the european Ariane 5! It can fly autonomous in Low Earth Orbit for 5 days and will take part in lunar and mars missions. It will be builded in two variants: a winged version (developed with the OKB Sukhoi) and a lifting-body version, but is almost sure that we'll see the winged version, because of the large window of re-entry offered by it's manoeuvreability. The cooperation with ESA is due because of the cost, about 300 millions of Euros, a really cheap project if we consider the Space Shuttle program and others. That's sound interesting... expecially for us Euroavians! ;-)

Taken from: Euroavia News - Issue 3 - 2005