Russia’s new Soyuz 5 rocket is preparing for its inaugural launch, but its market viability faces significant challenges amid international isolation and fierce competition from more affordable global alternatives.
The rocket, dubbed Irtysh, is expected to fly within the next month from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This launch comes almost a decade after the project began.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Western market largely closed to Russian space launches. This left Russia isolated from many international satellite operators.
Simultaneously, the global medium-capacity launch market has intensified. China and India are expanding their government and commercial launch offerings.
For companies prioritizing cost, Russia will likely struggle to compete with the reusable Falcon 9 booster offered by SpaceX. The number of geostationary satellites, a former mainstay for Russia’s Proton rocket, has also sharply declined.
The Soyuz 5 was conceived as a replacement for the aging and increasingly unreliable Proton booster. Russia aimed for a rocket capable of placing nearly 20 tons into low Earth orbit.
Its development dates back almost a decade, with preliminary design work completed in 2017. The goal was to build a new medium-capacity vehicle domestically, reducing reliance on components from Ukraine, which had designed and manufactured stages for its predecessor, the Zenit-2 rocket.
Roscosmos, the Russian space corporation, released images earlier this month of the Soyuz 5 undergoing final processing at the Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara, Russia. The booster was then shipped to the launch site in Kazakhstan, arriving on November 12.
While new, the Soyuz 5 does not represent a major technological leap. It is a conventional response to commercial boosters developed in the West.
The first stage is propelled by a single RD-171MV engine, which uses only Russian components. This engine, part of a family of the world’s most powerful liquid-fueled engines, boasts three times the thrust of a single Raptor 3 engine at sea level.
Russian authorities also plan to use the Soyuz 5 as a propulsion stage for a super-heavy Yenisei rocket. The Yenisei is intended for a crewed lunar program, but it remains largely in a nebulous development phase.
The Soyuz 5 positions itself between Russia’s existing Soyuz 2, which has about half its payload capacity, and the larger Angara A5 rockets. The question remains about sustained demand for a rocket with an 18-ton capacity for low Earth orbit.