Selling the MAKS idea

NPO Molniya advertised MAKS-OS by pointing out the following advantages:

– a high degree of reusability (with Mriya partially replacing the traditional rocket first stage + the return of the RD-701 engine aboard the spaceplane);

– its ability to fly from any first-category airfield outfitted with proper ground support and propellant loading facilities;

– an impressive 2,000 km cross-range capability, allowing the vehicle to land on runways located far from the orbital plane;

– an almost unlimited range of launch azimuths + short launch preparation times, combining to make it ideal for quick-response missions such as rescue of space station crews;

– an environmentally clean system thanks to the use of non-toxic propellants and the absence of rocket stage impact zones.

MAKS-OS was primarily seen as a launch system for both government and commercial small and medium-size satellites, the hope being that it would reduce launch costs by as much as ten times compared with expendable launch vehicles. NPO Molniya estimated that the system would break even after just three years if an annual launch rate of 20-25 missions was achieved. Although rarely mentioned, MAKS-OS also inherited the military advantages of the canceled Spiral system and was considered for reconnaissance, inspection, and attack missions [7]. Vladimir

Skorodelov, a deputy chief designer at NPO Molniya, later acknowledged that MAKS was conceived with both civilian and military goals in mind and that the civilian applications came to the foreground only as the Cold War drew to a close [8]. One may even wonder if MAKS wasn’t at least partially inspired by the US Air Force’s Space Sortie system, a quick-response military spaceplane studied in the early 1980s that would be launched with an external fuel tank from the back of a modified Boeing 747.

The preliminary design for MAKS was finished in 1988 and the system was first publicly presented by Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy at the 40th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation in Malaga, Spain in October 1989. Realizing that MAKS stood little chance as an exclusively government-funded project, NPO Molniya sought international partners to join the project. There was considerable European interest in the early 1990s. British Aerospace saw MAKS as a possible intermediate step towards its own Interim HOTOL, an An-225 launched version of the original British HOTOL single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane. ESA displayed interest in MAKS as an alternative to its own Hermes spaceplane. In 1993-1994 ESA sponsored a joint study by British Aerospace, NPO Molniya, TsAGI, and the Antonov design bureau on a MAKS look-alike Rocket Ascent Demonstrator Mis­sion (RADEM) to prove the technology for a possible European/Russian/Ukrainian reusable air-launched system. However, the results of the study were never imple­mented as ESA lost interest in a European-funded space transportation system. The study did result in NPO Molniya’s later MAKS-D proposal [9].

MAKS received little support within the Russian Space Agency, with Yuriy Koptev having spoken out against it even before becoming the head of the agency

in 1992 [10]. In 1998 Koptev claimed the system would cost $6-7 billion to develop, which was the same amount projected by British Aerospace in the early 1990s and twice the amount estimated by NPO Molniya itself [11]. The main objection raised against MAKS was the high launch rate required to make it cost-effective. The number of domestic satellite launches in the 1990s was quickly dwindling and estimates showed MAKS would be able to launch only 30 percent of the Russian payloads planned until 2010. Many also doubted that the system would ever capture a major share of the international launch market. After all, MAKS was a funda­mentally new launch system and not well suited to launch geostationary satellites, which comprise the bulk of the international commercial payloads.

Questions were also raised about the announced reusability (100 missions for each spaceplane and up to 15 missions for the RD-701 engine). NPO Molniya was also said to underestimate the cost of equipping airfields all over the world with the necessary support infrastructure, such as satellite-processing buildings and propellant storage facilities. Another major concern was that NPO Molniya poorly addressed safety issues related to MAKS’ use of cryogenic propellants and its all-azimuth launch capability. The latter in many cases required the vehicle to fly over populated, not to mention foreign territory [12].

Despite all the objections, NPO Molniya continued low-level research on MAKS using shoestring government funds (at least partially thanks to continued support from the military) and other financial means, some provided by the Moscow city government. Full-scale mock-ups were built of the OS spaceplane and the external fuel tank. A crude experimental version of the RD-701 began testing at NPO Energomash in 1994. Mriya re-entered service in 2001 after having been grounded for seven years.

MAKS was given a new chance in late 2005, when it competed with proposals by RKK Energiya and the Khrunichev Center in a tender to develop a successor for the Soyuz spacecraft. The spaceplane proper now had a slightly differently shaped fuselage and no longer had foldable wings. However, the Russian Space Agency canceled the tender in July 2006, preferring to develop a capsule-type vehicle in collaboration with ESA. One of the main drawbacks cited for MAKS was the considerable Ukrainian involvement—namely, the Antonov bureau’s Mriya aircraft. One of the requirements in the tender had been to limit foreign contributions. MAKS is now destined to go down in history as yet another unrealized Russian spaceplane project.