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The Soyuz family of consumable rockets is by far the most used launch vehicle in the world, with over a thousand successful launches under its belt, and an excellent safety record thanks to the launch top system. Soyuz rockets have been the only means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station for nearly a decade.
The Russian Soyuz-2 rocket has taken on a new color scheme, replacing the traditional gray-white-orange with a fresh “corporate blue” and white look.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, released a series of images on Saturday showing the new look and said in a press release that the inspiration for the color scheme was the prototype of the Vostok launcher – the pure white R-7 Semyorka ICBM-derived rocket that both launched the Sputnik 1 satellite and Yuri Gagarin – the world’s astronaut – in orbit in 1957 and 1961, respectively, in the Baikonur cosmodrome.
The first Soyuz-2.1a with the new paint job is expected to be launched on March 20 from Baikonur, taking 38 spacecraft from 18 countries into orbit.
The change in color scheme is the first of its kind since the Soyuz rocket family was unveiled back in 1966, with the rockets traditionally having a white nose cone, a gray transition space and orange tail section. Below are gray blocks from the first and second phase, and orange stripe surrounding the rocket’s amplifiers. After being fueled with liquid oxygen, the gray components of the rocket are covered with white frost, and at launch, the rockets appear to be almost completely white, apart from an orange frame.
Roscosmos says future launches under contract by its subsidiary Glavkosmos Launch Services (the space agency’s commercial launcher program manager) will use rockets painted according to the new scheme, which coincide with the company’s official colors.
© Photo: Roscosmos / Yuzhny Space Center
New color for Russian Soyuz rocket.
Opinions vary
Online, social media users were divided on what to make of the new color scheme. Some offered praise. “White is the best color for the Soyuz,” said one user suggested. ‘White? Soyuz trying on a new dress? Looks good! “Another clapped.
Others, however, did not seem satisfied, complain that while the US and China are sending spacecraft and advanced probes to the Moon and Mars, Roscosmos seems to be concentrating on choosing new color schemes for decades of Soviet technology. “The color is of course the most important,” says one user sarcastically suggested. “Will it help to start it?” another asked. “How many billions did you spend on the new paint job?” a third inquired. “Let them change the name, too. The Union (‘Soyuz’) has not existed for 30 years, a fourth wrote.
© Sputnik / Sergey Mamontov
Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket is launched into space with the launch Soyuz MS-14 vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Russia remains one of the largest world series countries in the world, offering other countries its patented, proven-safe rocket engines and transporting cosmonauts and astronauts to the International Space Station.
Roscosmos and the European Space Agency are collaborating on the ExoMars program, an ambitious, multi-part astrobiology effort to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet, study variations in the Martian environment, and demonstrate technologies for a future monster return mission. Ambitious plans have also been announced for missions to the moon, with Russia having to reconsider sending anthropomorphic robots to the asteroid and even planning the eventual establishment of manned bases there.
However, the Russian space agency’s limited funding and disputes over the distribution of funds for the construction of prestige projects – such as the 250,000 square meter massive skyscraper business complex near Moscow city center – have led some academics and cosmonauts to fear that the land rests on its laurels and gives up field of past achievements. Late last year, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeev, calculated that the Russian space science program received 60 times less funding than NASA receives, and dramatically asked whether Moscow should “abandon space altogether” amid the perceived growing inequality between the Russian, American and Chinese space. programs.