France, Russia Ink Deal On Rocket Launchers

File illustration of an earlier Orel 6 design for a flyback booster system

Paris (AFP) Mar 15, 2005
France and Russia on Tuesday signed a five-year, 200-million-euro (260-million-dollar) deal for joint research into a next-generation rocket launcher, the French National Centre for Space Studies (Cnes) said.

The deal on the so-called Orel project was signed in Paris by CNES and the Russian space agency Roskosmos, the agency said in a press release.

Scientists from the two countries will build and test prototype engines fuelled by hydrogen, oxygen and methane as well as a first-stage rocket booster that would glide back to Earth after launch so that it can be refuelled for another mission.

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ROCKET SCIENCE

Russia Wants To Build A New Extra-Heavy Launcher

Moscow (UPI) Mar 08, 2005
Russian space engineers are designing a next-generation, super-heavy booster rocket, local media reported Tuesday. Anatoly Kuzin, deputy general director of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, was reported by the ITAR-TASS news agency as saying the center is working on a three-stage rocket capable of lifting 110 tons of payload into low-Earth orbit and providing materials for assembling future space stations there.