China last week became the second country in the world to demonstrate its ability to put a rocket into orbit and make return and safely land your first stage. He is not the only one who is following the path opened by SpaceX a decade ago. The Japanese space agency JAXA The first flight of the demonstrator was carried out on July 11 RV-Xwhich ascended 11 meters and landed vertically, while Slingalso for Japancarried out a similar test in 2025 with its own prototype. In the American case, other companies are getting closer to the achievements of the Elon Muskwith Blue Originwhich has already managed to land and reuse a first stage of the New Glennat the head. And it is also making progress Stoke Space, Rocket Lab and Relativity Space.
Now, in this new competition for reusable rocketsWhere is Russia? The country that, being part of the Soviet Union, put the first satellite into orbit, the first human being and went ahead USA in the space race for more than a decade, is now clearly lagging behind a technology that is transforming the space economy, but plans havethat is never missing.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos presented in October 2020 the Amur-LNGknown in Russia as Amur-SPGa two-stage rocket designed to replace the Soyuz 2. The project It was due to premiere in 2026 with a reusable first stage, engines fueled with methane and liquid oxygen and a vertical landing system similar to that of the Falcon 9 from SpaceX. Six years later, the vehicle is still on paper and Roscosmos is still working on a previous demonstrator.
Roscosmos’ current plans for Armur-LNG
Dmitri Baranovdeputy general director of Roscosmos for rocket programs, explained in an interview with the Russian media RBC that The prototype must complete two tests. In the first you will ascend less than a kilometer without turning off the engine and return to the starting point. In the second, it will reach a height of 10 kilometers, turn off the booster, glide during the descent, turn it back on and land on deployable legs.
‘We have the so-called Amur-SPG demonstrator. It is a first stage that must take off and land,’ says Baranov. The Russian official describes the second test with an unusual expression. The vehicle must ‘glide, do some somersaults, restart the engine and land on its legs’.
The final Amur will have five engines RD-0169A in its first stage and another adapted to vacuum in the second. Roscosmos anticipates that it may place a little more 10 tons in low Earth orbit when it recovers the first stage and a little more 12 tons if used as a disposable rocket. Its expected height is around 55 meters and the design includes mesh fins and landing legs. The first stage could reused up to 100 times.
‘It is an analogue of the Falcon, to compare it in some way,’ says Baranov in RBC. Roscosmos has chosen a capacity close to that of Soyuz 2 because it considers that there will be more payloads in that segment than in the 17-ton segment occupied by Soyuz 5. The Amur will take off from the cosmodrome Vostochni and its stages should landing at ground facilities.
The intention is to replace ‘definitely and quite quickly’ to Soyuz 2, the current Russian workhorse for manned and cargo missions to the International Space Station. However, the calendar makes a close replacement difficult. Tests of the demonstrator are planned for 2028while Roscosmos has placed the beginning of flight tests of the orbital rocket in 2031. The ISS, by the way, is scheduled to deorbit a year earlier, although it could be delayed.
When Russia announced the Amur in 2020, it promised it would fly in 2026 and estimated a launch cost close to 22 million dollars. Since then, the premiere has been moved up by at least five years. Even if the new calendar is fulfilled, The Russian response to the Falcon 9 will come more than two decades after the first landing of a SpaceX orbital stage.