"Russian engineers have begun design work on a new spacecraft that would be twice as big and spacious as the existing Soyuz crew capsules, the nation's top space official said Tuesday. The new craft will be able to carry at least six cosmonauts and have a reusable crew section."
This new design is being developed primarily for orbital use, but may be capable of use in lunar and Mars missions. It will parallel the U.S. efforts under Project Constellation, although the Russian space agency stated they were already farther along with their plans than the U.S.
Posted by jburk at February 17, 2026 10:43 AM | TrackBackI was under the impression that the Russian space agency was strapped for cash, where will the money come from to pay for this new spacecraft and it's launcher?
Posted by: Dogsbd at February 18, 2026 08:12 AMThe Soyuz capsule redisign to hold more people is a very do-able item and not all that costly especially when you can charge by the seat to take a ride in it. The rocket though however seems to be geared at launches maybe to the moon.
Here is another opion on what was said by President Bush at Our Non-Expeditions to the Moon and Mars.
Look closely: President Bushs space initiative is more about robots than astronauts.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_muller021904.asp
I see that Nasa is again delaying the launch of the next Shuttle into next year. Also the GOA bean counters want to get a better accountability of the expense to get the Shuttle operational when it will be retired in only a few years. To determine if it is really worth doing and I guess to see what the money will get.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at February 18, 2026 09:51 AMI suspect the Russians are trying to capitalize on the fact that they are currently the only country that can provide seats to the ISS.
I remember reading someplace that NASA was intending to ask Congress to spend about $600 million buying seats for US personnel from the Russian Space Agency.
If approved, those funds will go a long way in paying for a new Russian capsule, nyet?
Posted by: Daniel at February 18, 2026 02:10 PMOne option for paying for the new crew vehicle is to develop a space tourism version. With a capacity for 6 people, that would leave 4 seats for paying passengers.
Another question is: how are the Russians going to pay for the new launcher for this new manned craft. Koptev talks about developing an upgrade to the Soyuz launcher. That will also cost some serious bucks.
One option for the future: If all goes well for SpacX's Falcon series, they would like to build a "heavy lifter" whose baseline design can put 35K lbs. into LEO. The new Russian craft is going to weigh 28K to 30K according to the article.
SpaceX believes they could sell the heavy lift launches for $25-30 million for unmanned payloads. Have no idea what "man-rating" the launcher would tack on to the price.
Posted by: Adrian Reilly at February 18, 2026 03:18 PMPlease get off this weblog if you do not want to discuss space issues. Thank you, do not spoil this for the rest of us.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at March 4, 2026 08:19 AMI took care of him, he's banned now.
Posted by: James Burk at March 5, 2026 01:24 AM