The cost of the lot is still a mystery
Roskosmos decided to earn extra money for the first time by selling the original capsule of the Soyuz reentry vehicle. The choice fell on the apparatus of the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft. “Tovar” is displayed on the Internet portal of the subsidiary company of Roscosmos “Glavkosmos”. MK learned the details.
The Russian manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-08, launched on March 21, 2018 at 20.44 Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome, delivered three members of the ISS-55/56 expedition crew to the International Space Station: the commander of the spacecraft, Roskosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, and two flight engineers: NASA astronauts Andrew Foistel and Richard Arnold.
On October 4, 2018, after 197 days in space, the descent module, which is offered to potential customers, successfully landed with its crew in Kazakhstan. This happened 146 km southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan. As previously reported by “MK”, when it touched the Earth, the capsule lay on its side, which does not always happen. This added a thrill to the astronauts, but did not affect their condition.
As explained to “MK” in the Glavkosmos, this descent vehicle No. 738 is still the property of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, which decided to offer it to a potential customer. According to the decision of the Civil Code, Glavkosmos did not disclose the cost.
It is assumed that the device, which has been in space, will be in great demand. He can replenish the exposition of any city museum, a thematic exhibition dedicated to space exploration, or just a private property.
The near-space community has already begun to discuss this topic on social networks, sorting out possible options for using the capsule. In addition to the exhibit, future buyers were offered to use it as a small house on their site.
Currently, the Soyuz MS-08 capsule, like all other descent vehicles, is stored at RSC Energia. As soon as an order is received for it, Roskosmos will begin to prepare it for sale. Since all capsules land with a burnt outer layer that forms after passing through the dense layers of the atmosphere, at the request of the customer, it can be cleaned or even painted to make it look like new. Roscosmos intends to inform about who bought the spent Russian descent vehicle only if the buyer does not object to this.
Help “MK”… Until recently, the Soyuz capsules were distributed by the state corporation only to Russian museums. One historical one, from the Soyuz MS-10, in which cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Nick Haig ejected after an emergency launch in October 2018, by decision of Dmitry Rogozin was installed on the Berezhkovskaya embankment, near the Roscosmos office, in memory of the happy salvation.
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