Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said that the first launch of the Russian unmanned spacecraft Orel will take place in 2024.
Rogozin noted that in 2024 a series of flight tests of the Orel will be carried out, in particular, “shooting the ship with an emergency rescue unit at the stage of operation of the first stage of the Angara-A5 rocket.” All this will occur at the maximum velocity pressure at an altitude of 10–15 km.
Moreover, the head of Roskosmos said that the Orel will land with a soft landing system. According to him, for these purposes, the Angara-A5 rocket will arrive at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the summer of 2023. However, the upgraded Angara-A5M will become the standard rocket for the spacecraft. Unlike the previous version of the rocket, it has a lightweight design and a more powerful engine.
“In April 2024, a flight copy of the ship will appear for testing, first in unmanned mode, and then in manned mode,” Rogozin said.
He also added that these tests will begin as soon as a positive test result is received from the ship’s emergency rescue missile unit.
Earlier, the flight of the Orel spacecraft without astronauts on board from the Vostochny cosmodrome was scheduled for 2023, in 2024, an unmanned flight with docking to the International Space Station was expected, and a year later, in 2025, a manned flight to the ISS on a new ship.