Parom

Parom ( Russian Паром for ferry ) was a from the Russian space company RKK Energia planned space tug . It was supposed to replace the Progress space transporters, which have been flying to space stations since 1978. The project was presented in 2004 by the Russian space company RKK Energija; a first flight was planned for 2009.

Mission flow

The flight regime should be different from that of the Progress transporters. As a reusable tug, the spaceship would have been brought into a 200 km high orbit with a launcher. There it was supposed to dock with freight containers launched later or the Kliper space transporter and bring them to the international space station .

construction

Parom should be built around a pressurized connecting tunnel with active docking adapters at each end. Each of these coupling adapters would have been used to couple cargo modules, the Kliper space transporter , a space station or another spaceship. The concept envisaged that the spacecraft would have its own engines that could move cargo modules up to 30 tons of mass, twice the mass of the largest modules put into orbit by space shuttles and Proton rockets. In addition, fuel lines should make it possible to pump fuel from the cargo module into the spaceship or the attached space station.

swell

• russianspaceweb.com: Parom orbital tug (english)
• Parom in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
• Lighter Kliper could make toward trip to ISS ( Memento from January 2, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). Flightglobal, November 2005 (English)
• Next-generation Russian spaceship unveiled . MSNBC, January 2004 (English)