The 14,000 kg Kliper is able to carry a six member crew and a 700 kg payload.

Two modifications of Kliper are proposed for use:

1. Load carrying hull will enable the spaceship to land on any flat ground with a parachute.

2. Aircraft-Style Hull. The aircraft style modification is being developed in collaboration with the Sukhoi Design Bureau. A winged Kliper would be able to land only on an airfield.

Both modifications many be used. Kliper's configuration will be changeable depending on the mission.

The Russian Federal Space Agency (FSA) is working on the project to launch a new space shuttle called Kliper.

Rocket Booster Options

Three options are being considered for booster rockets for launching the new Kliper space shuttle to orbit and they are:

1. Onega, a modified Soyuz rocket from a Plesetsk launch pad. It is a proposed new generation rocket from Energia.
2. The new generation Angara booster rocket
3. Ukrainian Zenit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Kliper could be launched in the future from other launch pads, including Kourou in French Guiana.

History

- On 16th September 2004, FSA deputy director Nikolai Moiseyev announced that the Kliper project had been included in the federal space program for 2005-15. He also mentioned if the program was implemented successfully the first launch may take place in five years.

- The presidents of the Common Economic Space countries (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus) in September passed a decision on setting up a space rocket corporation for joint use of the space complex Kliper-Zenit and ordered the governments of their countries to come up with concrete proposals by December 15, 2004.

- Russia's Kliper Space Shuttle was shown for the first time on November 30, 2004.

- The new Russian space shuttle Kliper will be exhibited as a full scale model at the Le Bourget on June 13-19, 2005.

Did you know?

* The Soyuz Spacecraft provides human transport to the International Space Station.

* Russian spacecraft traditionally use landing capsules which descend on parachutes. The only Russian space shuttle project Buran landed on an airfield. Buran shuttle made an unmanned spaceflight in November 1988. Buran shuttle performed only 1 flight. It orbited the Earth twice and landed automatically. Since the first flight it has been located in storage at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Several other copies of the Russian shuttle were built as part of a test program and through the years have all become known by the name Buran. One of them is now used as an attraction in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

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