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Russia is gearing up for the maiden flight of the country’s latest rocket, Soyuz-5, before the end of this year. Dmitry Bakanov, the head of Roscosmos, made the announcement in an interview with state media outlet TASS earlier this week.

“Yes, we are planning for December,” he said when asked about the rocket’s schedule. The official also noted that preparations for the first liftoff are nearly complete. The booster will be launched from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. If all goes well, the mission will represent the first test flight of a rocket that has been in the works for over a decade. Roscosmos plans to conduct several trials, but it will not enter service in operational mode until 2028.

History of the Soyuz-5 Rocket

The Soyuz-5, also known as Irtysh, is not a rocket based on entirely new concepts. The majority of its components are simply repurposed from the Zenit-2, a medium-lift vehicle that was first introduced in the 1980s by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau in Ukraine. While Zenit rockets were manufactured in Ukraine, they used an engine developed in Russia called the RD-171. As such, the two Soviet successor states maintained a tenuous working relationship for much of the time since Zenit’s retirement in 2014.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the cooperation between the two countries came to an end. In late 2023, a Russian airstrike even targeted the Ukrainian plant that once assembled Zenit rockets.

If the Zenit can be thought of as the parent project, the Soyuz-5 is its child. It is a larger version with one critical difference: it is entirely built in Russia. For Moscow, that shift represents a way to end years of dependency on Ukraine. The change also hastens the end of an older rocket, the Proton-M.

A Bridge Between Soviet-Era and Next-Generation Rockets

Technically speaking, Soyuz-5 is a medium-lift rocket. The booster is capable of launching about 17 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, according to Roscosmos. To that end, the latest Soyuz-5 will have larger propellant tanks than the Zenit. At the core of the rocket is the RD-171MV, the newest member of a family of engines that goes back decades.

The original design was developed for the Energia program of the 1980s. Energia was used to launch the Soviet Union’s short-lived space shuttle Buran. The RD-171MV’s most significant feature is that it has been entirely divested of Ukrainian parts. Fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, the RD-171MV engine is able to generate more than three times the thrust of NASA’s Space Shuttle main engine. It is the most powerful liquid-fueled rocket engine currently in operation.

The Soyuz-5 rocket itself is an expendable vehicle. In contrast, the field of major competitors, most prominently SpaceX, is focusing on reusable vehicles. It is unlikely that Soyuz-5 would gain a sizable share of the international launch market for that reason.

In that sense, Soyuz-5 has a bridge-like function. The vehicle keeps the Russian space program afloat, albeit with Soviet-era technology. In an ideal world, Roscosmos would have fielded a reusable rocket design to compete with SpaceX head-to-head. The Amur project, also known as Soyuz-7, was intended to fill that niche. Amur is built with a reusable first stage and a methane-fueled engine. The rocket could potentially match SpaceX in terms of price. However, persistent delays have pushed the vehicle’s debut to at least 2030.

The Best That Roscosmos Can Do for Now

Amur represents Russia’s future in spaceflight. Soyuz-5 is its present. With war costs and international sanctions limiting funding, developing a brand-new reusable rocket system has been a challenge. So, Roscosmos is making do with what it has for the time being.

To that end, Soyuz-5 is a stopgap that may not be successful in the commercial market but can at least ensure that Russian rocket design doesn’t come to a halt. The country also continues to operate its Soyuz-2 line for crewed launches and the Angara rocket family for more demanding tasks. However, neither vehicle has had great commercial success.

It is therefore an open question whether Soyuz-5 will have a better international outlook. The global launch industry has changed dramatically in the last decade, with SpaceX and Chinese launch providers offering cheaper and more flexible options than Russia has to offer.

Nonetheless, the fact that Roscosmos has managed to get Soyuz-5 close to the launchpad is a non-trivial achievement in its own right. If it is able to launch a working version of the rocket in December as planned, it will represent another data point in Russia’s post-Soviet history. For all of the setbacks, Moscow has at least demonstrated that it can still build and launch new hardware despite sanctions and a limited budget.