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Spaceflight Now: Russia eyes Soyuz upgrades for mission around the moon
Space tourism firm Space Adventures says two customers have paid deposits for a flight around the moon on a Soyuz spacecraft, but the trip requires major changes to the Russian crew capsule, a vehicle that has seen only incremental upgrades in recent decades.
While the Virginia-based company works with Russian engineers to make the venerable Soyuz ferry craft ready for a lunar voyage, Space Adventures president Tom Shelley said last week he expects prices for tourist trips to the International Space Station to fall once U.S.-built capsules begin flying astronauts into low Earth orbit.
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"We are going to have to change the heat shield because you're re-entering at a significantly higher speed" on a lunar mission, Shelley said, adding engineers are considering whether to guide the Soyuz landing capsule to a "skip re-entry" in which the spacecraft would dip into the atmosphere to dissipate speed before plunging to the surface to a parachute-assisted touchdown.
The Soviet-era Zond robotic circumlunar missions, intended to pave the way for future human voyages, pioneered the skip re-entry technique in the 1960s.
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