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An experimental space hoover, partly developed by the University of Surrey , has reached the International Space Station (ISS) on its mission to clean up space.

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite, designed and manufactured by a consortium led by the university , was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on April 2. It is intended to show how space junk might be removed from the Earth's orbit, clearing the way for future missions.

Once it is released from the ISS later in April 2018, RemoveDEBRIS will use a net and a harpoon to snare pieces of space junk before returning to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere. Researchers hope this will prove a cost-effective way of tackling space debris.

The European Space Agency (ESA) estimated in 2013 that there were more than 170 million pieces of debris larger than 1mm across, 670,000 pieces larger than 1cm and around 29,000 pieces larger than 10cm.

Some of the junk, the debris of previous space missions, orbits the Earth at speeds of almost 30,000 miles per hour.

For comparison, the average bullet travels at just 1,700mph, making some of this space junk a serious safety concern that could make it impossible to leave Earth if the risk of collision becomes too great.

According to the ESA, a piece of debris even 1mm across could destroy sub-systems on board a spacecraft, whereas a piece 1cm across would be enough to disable spacecraft. Collision with a 10cm-diametre object would be catastrophic.

Professor Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, said: "It is important to remember that a few significant collisions have already happened.

"Therefore, to maintain the safety of current and future space assets, the issue of the control and reduction of space debris has to be addressed.

"We believe the technologies we will be demonstrating with RemoveDEBRIS could provide feasible answers to the space junk problem - answers that could be used on future space missions in the very near future."

In 2016, the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A satellite was hit by a millimetre-sized piece of debris, which left a dent of about 10cm in one of the satellite's solar panels. Another collision occurred in 2007, when some debris blew a bullet-like hole in the radiator panel of the space shuttle Endeavour.

(Image: Max Alexander/SSTL)

Keep up to date with the latest news from around the county via the free Get Surrey app.

You can set up your app to see all the latest news and events from your area, plus receive push notifications for breaking news.

Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android .</s>Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA) and Embraer (NYSE:ERJ) are both mid-cap aerospace companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, risk, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

This table compares Orbital ATK and Embraer’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

80.6% of Orbital ATK shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 48.1% of Embraer shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of Orbital ATK shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of Embraer shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for Orbital ATK and Embraer, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

Orbital ATK presently has a consensus target price of $122.58, indicating a potential downside of 7.62%. Embraer has a consensus target price of $24.43, indicating a potential downside of 11.14%. Given Orbital ATK’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Orbital ATK is more favorable than Embraer.

Orbital ATK has a beta of -0.28, indicating that its stock price is 128% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Embraer has a beta of 0.15, indicating that its stock price is 85% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Orbital ATK pays an annual dividend of $1.28 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Embraer pays an annual dividend of $0.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.2%. Orbital ATK pays out 20.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Embraer pays out 3.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Orbital ATK has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Orbital ATK is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

This table compares Orbital ATK and Embraer’s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Orbital ATK has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Embraer. Embraer is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Orbital ATK, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Orbital ATK beats Embraer on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

Orbital ATK, Inc. develops and produces aerospace and defense related products to the U.S. Government, allied nations, prime contractors, and other customers in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Flight Systems Group, Defense Systems Group, and Space Systems Group. The Flight Systems Group segment develops launch vehicles that are used as small-and medium-class space launch vehicles to place satellites into Earth orbit and escape trajectories; interceptor and target vehicles for missile defense systems; suborbital launch vehicles that place payloads into various high-altitude trajectories; rocket propulsion systems for human and cargo launch vehicles; strategic missiles; missile defense interceptors and target vehicles; and composite structures for military and commercial aircraft and launch structures markets. The Defense Systems Group segment develops and produces military ammunition; propulsion systems for tactical missiles and missile defense applications; strike weapons; precision weapons and munitions; high-performance gun systems; aircraft survivability systems; fuzes and warheads; propellant and energetic materials; special mission aircraft; airborne missile warning systems; and defense electronics. The Space Systems Group segment offers small-and medium-class satellites that are used to enable global and regional communications and broadcasting; conduct space-related scientific research; and perform activities related to national security. This segment also provides human-rated space systems for Earth-orbit and deep-space exploration, including re-supplying the international space station; and spacecraft components and subsystems, as well as specialized engineering and operations services. Orbital ATK, Inc. is headquartered in Dulles, Virginia.

Embraer S.A. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells aircraft and systems in Brazil, North America, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, and internationally. It operates through Commercial Aviation, Executive Jets, Defense & Security, and Other Related Businesses segments. The Commercial Aviation segment develops, produces, and sells commercial jets; and provides support services, as well as leases aircraft. Its products include ERJ 145 family, EMBRAER 170/190 family, and E-Jets family of commercial aircraft. The Executive Jets segment develops, produces, and sells executive jets; and offers support services, as well as leases aircraft. It provides Legacy 600 and Legacy 650 executive jets in the super midsize and large categories; Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 executive jets in the midlight and midsize categories; Phenom family executive jets in the entry jet and light jet categories; and Lineage 1000, an ultra-large executive jet. The Defense & Security segment engages in the research, development, production, modification, and support for military defense and security aircraft, as well as offers a range of products and integrated solutions that include radars, special space systems (satellites), and information and communications systems, such as command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. The Other Related Businesses segment is involved in the supply of fuel systems, structural parts, and mechanical and hydraulic systems; and production of agricultural crop-spraying aircraft. The company was formerly known as Embraer-Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica S.A. and changed its name to Embraer S.A. in November 2010. Embraer S.A. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in São José dos Campos, Brazil.

Receive News & Ratings for Orbital ATK Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Orbital ATK and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.</s>Orbital ATK’s bid to join the U.S. military’s roster of rockets to haul the most critical national security satellites into orbit faces stiff competition from entrenched launch providers and billionaire entrepreneurs, but the company is confident its Next Generation Launch system will win one of three funding agreements the Air Force is expected to award this summer.

The U.S. Air Force is preparing to select up to three companies later this year for Launch Services Agreements, the Pentagon’s name for cost-sharing public-private development contracts aimed at giving the military multiple launch options in the 2020s, all with U.S.-supplied propulsion systems.

Orbital ATK has launched orbital-class rockets more than 70 times, but the company’s biggest booster — the Antares — is sized for medium-size payloads, finding a niche in NASA’s program to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

The solid-fueled Next Generation Launch system proposed by Orbital ATK would more than double the Antares rocket’s payload-carrying capability to most types of orbits, and enable Orbital ATK to place satellites into unique, harder-to-reach orbits that are currently not serviceable by any other launcher in the company’s fleet.

“We’re very confident that we’re going to receive selections for the next phase,” said Mike Laidley, Orbital ATK’s vice president of the Next Generation Launch program. “We think that we offer the Air Force a good opportunity to maintain their prime directive of assured access to space. We think solid motor propulsion has a place in this market, and we’re anxious to provide that.”

Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of our full interview with Mike Laidley. Become a member today and support our coverage.

The new rocket would build on solid-fueled rocket motors Orbital ATK built for the space shuttle, but engineers have replaced the shuttle-era motor’s metallic casings with composite materials, reducing their weight and making the rockets easier to build.

“The key here is that there’s some automated winding equipment that’s going to make it more efficient for us, and it’s an opportunity to refine our processes and build these large 12-foot diameter segmented designs in a very efficient manner compared to the metal cases that were used in the shuttle era,” Laidley said.

United Launch Alliance, which was the only launch provider certified by the Air Force until 2015, is retiring most of the configurations in its Delta 4 rocket family in 2019, followed by the phase-out of the Delta 4-Heavy version in the early or mid-2020s. The company says the Delta 4 is no longer competitive on cost.

ULA’s Atlas 5 will be replaced by the Vulcan rocket in the early 2020s, a two-stage launcher that will use U.S.-made engines. This Atlas 5, which is less expensive than the Delta 4, currently uses Russian-made RD-180 engines.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is the other major player in today’s national security launch market. Since its certification by the Air Force in 2015, the Falcon 9 has won contracts to launch five GPS navigation satellites, and is in the running for more military launch deals.

The Falcon Heavy rocket, which flies with three modified Falcon 9 rocket boosters bolted together, is not yet eligible to launch the military’s most expensive space missions. That certification will come once the Falcon Heavy accrues multiple successful flights, and goes through a detailed Air Force engineering review.

Orbital ATK is a newcomer to the market for launching large military communications, navigation and reconnaissance satellites. But Laidley says the company’s Next Generation Launch system, which uses solid-fueled first and stage stage motors topped with a cryogenic liquid-fueled upper stage, is a solution the Air Force should consider.

“We’ve been working to develop a launch system that would support those EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) mission requirements — all the different launch payload types and orbits,” Laidley said. “We’ve been working on that now for about two-and-a-half years.”

The Air Force awarded funding in 2016 to ULA, SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Aerojet Rocketdyne to work on U.S.-made propulsion technology to power new rockets, eyeing a replacement to the Russian RD-180 engine. The funding agreements required the companies to put forward some of their own money in the effort.

ULA directed much of its funding toward Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos which is testing the BE-4 engine fueled by liquified natural gas. ULA says Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine is their preferred option to power the Vulcan rocket’s first stage. SpaceX’s slice of the Air Force engine money went toward the company’s Raptor engine, a methane-fueled powerplant for a huge new rocket named the BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket.

Orbital ATK focused its funding on the Next Generation Launch system, while Aerojet Rocketdyne — an engine-builder, not a rocket operator — advanced the design of its AR1 engine, which ULA is keeping as a backup option for the Vulcan launcher in case the BE-4 runs into trouble.

Blue Origin received some Air Force propulsion funding routed through ULA for the BE-4 engine, but the lion’s share of the company’s engine development has been privately-funded.

The Air Force released a follow-up request for proposals in October, seeking bids for government funding to help launch companies pay for their next-generation rockets through the military’s EELV program. The Launch Services Agreements will be announced in the next few months to fund continued work on up to three launch vehicles, followed by a down-select to two providers in late 2019.

Those two finalists will continue receiving government funding support through their rockets’ test flights.

ULA, SpaceX and Blue Origin are expected to compete for Launch Services Agreements.

Blue Origin’s chief executive, Bob Smith, said last year the company is in early talks with the Air Force about certifying its own New Glenn rocket for national security missions, potentially placing Blue Origin in competition with ULA, one of its customers. An industry official familiar with matter said Thursday that Blue Origin has submitted a proposal for an Air Force Launch Services Agreement.

Lacking the financial backing and personality of a billionaire entrepreneur like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, Orbital ATK is flying under the radar. But the company received news earlier this year that keeps it in the competition.

Laidley said the Air Force informed Orbital ATK in February that the Next Generation Launch system proposal was within the “competitive range,” and is eligible for further scrutiny leading up to a potential contract award.

“We’ve invested a lot of our money to date, so it was important for the Air Force to evaluate our proposal and say that it’s adequate, and now any money we spend can ultimately be counted toward the cost share investment in the Launch Services Agreement,” Laidley said in a recent interview with Spaceflight Now.

Orbital ATK said in January that the company and the Air Force have jointly invested more than $200 million on the NGL program.

Laidley declined to how much of Orbital ATK’s own money has been applied to the NGL program, but the terms of the Air Force’s 2016 funding agreement to support development the new rocket’s solid-fueled propulsion system said the Air Force would supply between $46.9 million and $180.2 million for the program’s first phase, with Orbital ATK pledging between $31.1 million and $124.8 million.

The Air Force requires that companies provide at least one-third of the development cost through internal funding.

“We’re providing more than the minimum, but it’s competitive, so we’re not prepared to talk about our negotiation strategy,” Laidley said.

Laidley also declined to provide cost estimates for an individual NGL mission.

“We will certainly be competitive,” he said. “We took a hard look at what those missions have sold for historically, and we can be competitive in that marketplace.

“One of the opportunties we’ve got that others don’t is we do have our own in-house supply of customers. We produce our own satellites. We buy launch services. We’ve historically bought launch services from both of these competitors that are currently in play. We have an in-house opportunity to capture work from our own team, and that makes us unique as well.”

Orbital ATK says the Next Generation Launch system will benefit from upgraded avionics, computers and other technology based on components already used on the company’s smaller rockets.

“We’ve got avionics that we’ve developed in-house in our launch vehicle division, and those avionics fly in all of our launch vehicle products, from our small targets that we sell to the Navy, all the way up to Antares,” Laidley said. “As part of the NGL effort, we’re developing a fault-tolerant version of those avionics, which basically involves taking multiple sets of software voting logic … That gives the Air Force a lot of confidence that we have a system that’s got a solid flight history.”

If Orbital ATK wins additional Air Force funding this summer, Laidley said engineers will advance the design of the entire rocket, which has so far been limited to funding from the company’s own coffers. The Air Force money already awarded to Orbital ATK could only be used on developing the NGL system’s Common Booster Segment, derivatives of which would power the rocket’s first and second stages.

“That was restricted to developing primary propulsion products that would support the RD-180 replacement,” he said of the existing Air Force funding award. “The LSA (Launch Services Agreement) money, we need to use it for the launch system or the launch system infrastructure. It’s geared toward putting together an overall launch system. It’s not restricted to the use of any particular stage. We will use the cost-share money to fund the entire system.”

The NGL would come in two basic versions: an intermediate and a heavy configuration.

The intermediate version would have a two-segment solid-fueled core stage, called a Castor 600, that would generate 2.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The heavy version would have a four-segment core rocket motor, the Castor 1200, putting out 3.1 million pounds of thrust.

Both configurations would have a single-segment Castor 300 second stage motor, built using the same tooling as the multi-segment first stage motors, and a hydrogen-fueled cryogenic upper stage engine. The Castor motors would be produced and tested at Orbital ATK’s facility in Promontory, Utah.

“As we start through this process, we built these segmented cases so we can do loads testing, burst testing, and use them to develop our manufacturing processes for winding insulation and ultimately pouring the overall motors,” Laidley said. “All of this is leading up to static fire testing of the first two stages of the intermediate class, what we’re calling the Castor 600, which is a two-segment first stage, and the Castor 300, a single-segment second stage. Those motors will static fire in 2019.”

The intermediate and heavy configurations could get an additional boost from up to six strap-on boosters, the same 63-inch diameter augmentation motors Orbital ATK is currently qualifying for use on ULA’s Atlas 5 and Vulcan rockets. The number of strap-on boosters on each NGL flight could be tailored based on mission requirements, allowing for odd numbers boosters to fly on the rocket, similar to the Atlas 5’s design, Laidley said.

The solid rocket boosters, known as GEM 63XLs, would remain attached to the NGL’s first stage in the intermediate version, then jettison together with the core motor. The boosters would separate individually on the heavy version, Laidley said.

Laidley said Orbital ATK has studied proposals for third stage engines from Blue Origin, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Europe’s Ariane Group. A final decision on the NGL’s upper stage engine is expected soon.

Orbital ATK plans to build the launcher’s 5-meter (16-foot) diameter payload shroud — roughly the same diameter as fairings flown on Atlas 5, Falcon 9 and Ariane 5 rockets — at the company’s structures division in Iuka, Mississippi.

According to an Orbital ATK fact sheet, the intermediate version of NGL will lift between 10,800 pounds (4,900 kilograms) and around 22,300 pounds (10,100 kilograms) into a geostationary transfer orbit, an elliptical loop around Earth commonly by communications satellites transiting to geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

That performance range is comparable to the lift capacity of ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket family.

The heavy NGL configuration can loft between roughly 11,600 pounds (5,250 kilograms) and 17,200 pounds (7,800 kilograms) of payload directly into geostationary orbit — eliminating the need for a spacecraft to use its own fuel for major orbital maneuvers.

The NGL’s exact performance capability depends on the number of solid-fueled boosters added to the rocket.

“Right now, we’re planning on about three to four missions per year to close our business case,” Laidley said. “A couple of those could come from the Air Force and a couple of those could come from either our internal needs or the commercial community. We can close our business case with a fairly low launch rate, and that’s primarily due to the diversity of our business base, and the fact that right now we’ve got a number of other large programs in our launch vehicle division, along with the propulsion systems division and aerospace structures.”

Orbital ATK does not plan to reuse any parts of the NGL system, despite the company’s history with refurbishing shuttle solid rocket boosters.

“We’re not planning any reusability in this vehicle,” Laidley said. “We’re really focusing on commonality with our other product lines and getting as efficient as we can that way.”

Some of the savings, Laidley said, were realized by the merger of Orbital Sciences and ATK in early 2015. The corporate marriage brought together ATK’s experience with solid rocket propulsion and composite structures and Orbital’s knowledge of launch vehicle and satellite manufacturing and operations.

“Without the merger, it would have been very difficult to pull this together, with hardware coming from different companies,” Laidley said. “It would have been very difficult for us to be competitive. We think NGL is the first major offering that allows us to leverage all the capabilities of the company that our corporate leaders envisioned.”

Orbital ATK’s expected acquisition by Northrop Grumman should not affect the new rocket’s development, according to Laidley.

“We firmly believe the new ownership is committed,” he said. “They’ve expressed their interest in this as well. I think this is a program area that they would use as a growth area.”

Assuming Orbital ATK receives the next two tranches of Air Force funding, the intermediate version of the NGL system could make its maiden flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the first quarter of 2021, Laidley said. After as few as two successful test missions, the rocket could be certified by the Air Force for national security payloads by the end of 2021.

The heavy version would follow with two test flights in 2024.

“The proposal we submitted gives the government a firm cost and cost-share proposal all the way through the intermediate and heavy certification flight,” Laidley said.

Orbital ATK has secured an agreement with NASA to use Mobile Launch Platform No. 3, originally built for the Saturn 5 moon rocket and modified for the space shuttle, for NGL missions. Technicians would stack the rocket inside High Bay 2 in the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building, then roll out to launch pad 39B a few days before liftoff.

Final details of the agreement to provide for Orbital ATK’s co-use of pad 39B with NASA’s Space Launch System are being worked out now, Laidley said.

Construction to ready the launch platform and VAB high bay for Orbital ATK’s rocket could begin next year, contingent on the Next Generation Launch system’s green light from the Air Force this summer.

For a West Coast launch site to support polar orbit missions, Orbital ATK is considering at least two options: Upgrading the Delta 2 launch pad at Space Launch Complex 2-West once that rocket is retired later this year, or moving into Space Launch Complex-6 when the Delta 4-Heavy flies its last mission in the 2020s.</s>An Italian astronaut aboard the International Space Station took advantage of a clear view from above his home country and shot real-time video of his flyover on August 29.Paolo Nespoli is working aboard the station as part of the Italian Space Agency’s long-duration VITA mission, the European Space Agency said.The video was shot with a professional digital RED Dragon cinema camera, the space agency said. Credit: European Space Agency via Storyful</s>The revival of space launches from a sea platform serves as a pilot project for Russia's space agency's ability to benefit from private capital. Neglecting the commercial aspects of spaceflight is no longer an option.Russian space agency Roscosmos has long ignored the arrival of private firms in the space industry, and the result has been the loss of international customers and sluggish development in new technology. But now Roscosmos is apparently willing to cooperate with for-profit organizations. As the world celebrates International Space Day on Thursday, RT looks at how the revival of the Sea Launch project attempts to become a proof-of-concept for a shift in how the Russian space industry works.In late December 2017, a rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and delivered a telecommunications satellite into orbit. The Russia-made spacecraft was supposed to reach geosynchronous orbit and become the first operated by the African nation of Angola. Instead, it experienced communication glitches and was finally ordered by mission control to go into hibernation. AngoSat 1 may yet to be revived later this month, but there is not much hope for it.Yet one party involved in the launch considered it a big success. The carrier rocket that delivered AngoSat 1 to its orbital grave was a Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-3F, a version of a rocket family developed by the Soviet Union and remarkable for its other version - the Zenit-3SL. The letters stand for 'Sea Launch' - an ambitious collaboration for launching commercial payloads from a sea platform floating near the equator. The December 2017 launch was the first for Sea Launch's new private owner, the S7 Space.Sea Launch started in 1995, capitalizing on an idea previously explored by Italy's Broglio Space Centre.Unlike the stationary off-shore Italian platform, Sea Launch has a floating platform and a separate assembly and command ship called the Sea Launch Commander - which was recently used as a filming location for the action film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. A rocket is assembled and fueled on the ship while in port and transferred to a hangar on board a self-propelled platform called the Ocean Odyssey. Both then sail to a point in the Pacific, which could be perhaps be described as the middle of nowhere, and there the rocket is lifted into vertical position and launched while the command ship keeps a safe distance of about 5km.The Sea Launch consortium initially included the US company Boeing as system integrator, Ukraine's duo Yuzhnoye/Yuzhmash, the producers of the Zenit rockets, Russia's Energia to provide the Block DM-SL third rocket stage, and Norway's Aker Solutions, which provided the sea craft for the project.S7 Space, a subsidiary of Russia's biggest airline, started acquiring Sea Launch in 2016 and plans to restart its orbital services in 2019. It received the AngoSat 1 mission as a legacy. The satellite was initially planned to be boosted from the Ocean Odyssey, experienced years of delays, got bounced to the backup launch site in Kazakhstan with a different version of the carrier rocket, and became S7's pilot attempt at space. A somewhat rocky start, all things considered.The revival of equatorial launches provides a few challenges for S7, including the supply of rockets. The launch pad stopped operating in 2014 because Zenit, technically a Ukrainian product, required close collaboration with Russia. After Kiev and Moscow started becoming antagonistic towards each other, cooperation with any hint of a military aspect was cut by the Ukrainian government. Uzhmash has since been struggling to find customers and overcome its dependence on parts from Russia, including engines, which comprise roughly 70 percent of the rocket.Nevertheless, last June,Roscosmos will also have to show goodwill for the project to go further. The agency is notoriously conservative and unwilling to acknowledge that Russia needs private capital to remain a prominent space nation, according to critics. This position has already cost Russia market share in launch services, which the ageing Progress rocket lost to younger and more capable competitors like Space X.The Russian space agency has long enjoyed a secure position in Russia, being virtually the sole provider of access to orbit with a steady stream of government contracts. Space officials could simply reuse and slowly improve legacy technologies from Soviet times with little regard to how efficient the industry was. After all, that was how business was done in the glory days of the Buran/Energia project and that is how China is currently making steady progress in space. Failures and reliability problems were brushed aside as mere glitches. Clutter in the production pipeline was perceived as inevitable. The drive in the US to hand over non-strategic space missions to private companies was dismissed as nonsense.In 2014, the defense & space deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, joked that if the Americans try to sanction the Russian space industry, they should be prepared to travel to the International Space Station with a trampoline. Amid the jokes and denials,S7 becoming the Sea Launch operator seems to be Russia's biggest attempt to privatize the part of its space industry where such a move makes sense, making it more competitive in purely financial terms. Irritation over Roscosmos' bottom line has grown in the government for some time now, culminating last December in a rare public castigation by Andrey Belousov, a presidential aide. He blasted the industry's 220,000 employees and 90 organizations as "a mass of people who can't earn damn money."The politically perilous resurrection of Sea Launch has potential long-term consequences. S7 plans to switch in around 2022 from Zenit rockets to a new carrier called Soyuz-5, also dubbed Fenix after the code name of its development program. It's a major upgrade of the Zenit design currently in the works by Energia, and an apparent competitor to the Angara rocket family, which was developed by another Russian space contractor, the Khrunichev Center.On its own, the Soyuz-5 is a designated replacement for the Proton-M and Zenit versions, but it will also serve as the basis for a new super heavy lift rocket, which was signed for development by Roscosmos last week.Some of the reported design elements of the super heavy Soyuz-5 are obviously inspired by Space X successes, like a reusable first stage or a modular composition of multiple-engine boosters for heavier versions, similar to Falcon Heavy.According to open-source data, the final launch system includes a new launch pad, the carrier rocket, a new third stage, and possibly a transfer spacecraft with a nuclear propulsion system. The "space towboat" will deliver heavy payloads like supply cargo for a moon base or modules of a lunar orbital space station after they are launched from Earth.These plans are still decades away from implementation, of course, and Russia has a lot of catching up to do.It's a bitter pill for Roscosmos to swallow, but it has to.</s>U.S., Russian and Japanese crew arrive at the International Space Station after a two-day journey from Earth. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
Experimental satellite RemoveDEBRIS arrives at the International Space Station ahead of a planned mission removing orbital debris.