Soyuz-5 Rocket Launch Set for December 2023

Russia is preparing to launch the newest member of its Soyuz rocket family by the end of this year. That was the word from Dmitry Bakanov, director of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, in an interview published Friday by the state-run news agency TASS.

“Yes, we are planning for December,” Bakanov told TASS, adding that the preparations for the first launch were nearly complete. The Soyuz-5 is set to fly from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. If all goes well, this would be the maiden test flight of a vehicle that has been in development for more than a decade. Roscosmos is planning multiple trial launches of Soyuz-5, but commercial service is not expected until 2028.

Soyuz-5, also known as Irtysh, isn’t the product of completely new technology or ideas. On the contrary: Roscosmos is relying on the designs of the Zenit-2 rocket, a workhorse of commercial launches developed in the 1980s at the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau in Ukraine. Zenit rockets were assembled in Ukraine, but they used engines from Russia: The RD-171 is a powerful booster but also a symbol of the kind of post-Soviet aerospace cooperation that ended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. By the end of 2023, Russia bombed the very same plant where Zenit rockets had once been built.

Soyuz-5 can be seen as a larger, Russian-made version of the Zenit. The redesign omits Ukraine from the production process, ensuring that no essential component will be made in a former Soviet republic. In Moscow, that’s a major point of emphasis: It ends years of dependence while also paving the way for the retirement of another Soviet-era workhorse, the Proton-M launcher.

A Bridge Between Past and Future

For the record, Soyuz-5 is a medium-lift rocket. It can haul some 17 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, a capability that it shares with Zenit. The new rocket can carry a few tons more thanks to slightly larger propellant tanks. The key to this power is the RD-171MV engine that powers the core stage. This is the latest addition to a long line of rocket engines.

RD-171’s origins date back to the Energia program in the 1980s, which provided the power needed to lift the Soviet Union’s space shuttle, Buran. The current version, RD-171MV, is important for one reason: it does not use a single Ukrainian part. The engine burns kerosene and liquid oxygen, which makes it far larger than SpaceX’s Space Shuttle main engine. It produces more than three times the thrust, making RD-171MV the most powerful liquid-fueled rocket engine in operation today.

It remains an expendable rocket. Newer rivals, most notably SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, are purpose-built to survive re-entry and fly again. That key difference will likely make it difficult for Soyuz-5 to ever capture a significant share of the international launch market.

But that may not matter. For Roscosmos, Soyuz-5 has important domestic value. It faces a major hurdle for the foreseeable future: Both war-related expenses and international sanctions have limited funding for new programs. Developing a new, reusable rocket from scratch has proven to be a challenge. The Amur project, also known as Soyuz-7, was supposed to fill that gap. The design, which is largely flown but not yet operational, was set to be made from a reusable first stage and fueled by methane. A vehicle such as Amur could eventually allow Russia to compete with SpaceX on price. But delays have pushed the debut to at least 2030.

It leaves Soyuz-5 as something of a stopgap measure. It keeps Russia’s space program on track, albeit with technology that dates back to the Soviet era.

Commercially, the prospects remain unclear. The global launch market has changed in the last decade, with SpaceX and Chinese providers offering low-cost and flexible options. Russia has kept its Soyuz-2 rockets for crewed flights and the Angara family for heavier payloads, but neither has found a strong commercial foothold outside of Russia. It’s not clear if Soyuz-5 can break that pattern.

But the very fact that Roscosmos has been able to bring Soyuz-5 to the point of launch despite the challenges is notable. A successful flight in December would be a demonstration of Russia’s ability to field new hardware, even under sanctions and a smaller budget.

Soyuz-5 won’t change the rules of rocket design. But for Russia, the political and industrial symbolism behind it carries more weight than it might for other launch vehicles. It’s a step toward the kind of independence from foreign technology and a bridge to the future, whether that comes with Amur or a future generation of rockets that is still on the drawing board.