Russia Plans Falcon-like "Amur" Reusable Rocket

[Yazata]

The Russians have obviously been watching Elon and decided that reusable rockets are the wave of the future.

So here's their new 'Amur' rocket design. (Amur is the big river in the Russian far east where the country's new launch center is.) It really looks like a Falcon 9 copy, same shape and proportions, same landing legs and grid-fins, except that like Starship/SuperHeavy it uses liquid methane as fuel. Apparently its payload will be significantly less than Falcon 9. It seems to be planning to market itself between Rocketlab's Electron and Falcon 9.

https://www.roscosmos.ru/29357/

Elon congratulated Roscosmos on going for a reusable rocket, but thinks that 'Amur' should be larger and shouldn't use an expendable second stage. (Falcon 9 does, but that's a weakness.) SpaceX is trying to get away from wasting any part of their rockets with Starship.

So the Russians are hurrying to catch up with where SpaceX was the better part of a decade ago.

Eric Berger of Ars Technica says, "Russia has clearly decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em with its new design for a reusable booster. Alas, no flights until at least 2026 means it will be at least 15 years behind the Falcon 9. Russia is lucky SpaceX doesn't innovate, hah."

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...5452903425

And unfortunately for Russia, they don't have Lars Blackmore. Even if their rocket looks like an F-9, it won't work like an F-9 without the software. Though Russia does have many world-class engineers and should be able to figure out how to land rockets on their own.

One wonders where the Starship program will be in six years... (literally)

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[Yazata]

Russia's reusable Amur rocket continues to evolve. They appear to have decided on using carbon fiber tanks, which they think will allow them to increase the payload to low earth orbit from 12.5 tonnes (metric tons) to 13.6. But the switch requires that they make new test tanks which might further delay their program.

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