Roscosmos Ion Drive Tug ROSS: Russian Orbital Service Station

Sputnik  | The Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) first showed off the preliminary design of its prospective Zeus nuclear-powered space tug last year. If all goes to plan, the spacecraft’s design will be completed by 2024, and it will kick off its first autonomous mission in 2030.

 

Cosmonauts will fly between the new Russian space station and the Zeus space tug aboard a separate pilotable craft to oversee construction, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has indicated.

 

“The new station will operate at an orbit from which the crew will be able to visit our nuclear space tug Zeus with their manned aircraft to control the deployment of all of its key components and structures –first and foremost, its giant radiators to dump excess heat – until the reactor is turned on in a safe orbit 800 km away,” Rogozin wrote in a post on his Telegram channel Monday, summarizing a weekend meeting he’d had with chief orbital manned systems general designer Vladimir Solovyov and Igor Khamits, designer of the prospective Oryol spacecraft.

 

“It should finally be recognized that long-distance flights by human beings into outer space are impossible using current chemical propulsion engines. Their power and fuel reserves will not be sufficient not only to return a manned mission home, but even to ensure the initial stages of the flight. That is why it is necessary to find a solution on how to safely connect an orbital manned station to a nuclear tug,” Rogozin mused.

 

The Roscosmos chief emphasized that “only the growing power of a nuclear space tug is capable of moving a manned station in low earth orbit to high orbits and to deep space,” and noted that nuclear energy has the potential to move humanity toward a “fundamentally new direction in manned cosmonautics.”

 

Rogozin also revealed that Russia’s new space station, which will be situated in a more radiation-intensive polar orbit, will require technologies cosmonauts will need in the future for flights to other planets in our solar system, including the associated life support systems, and arrangements for the provision of food, water and fuel without the need for these to be delivered by cargo ships from Earth.

Rogozin accompanied his post with rendered images of the prospective Russian space station – known as the Russia Orbital Service Station (ROSS), as well as a concept drawing of the Zeus space tug.