Question by Rob: What type of space shuttle and rocket is Russia using?
I was reading that Russia is working on a new design is that true? What is Russia and China doing with their space program.
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Answer by lithiumdeuteride
For manned spaceflight, Russia has been relying on their tried-and-true Soyuz rocket (with capsule of the same name) since the 1960s. They’ve recently made some upgrades to Soyuz. They’ve also discussed a new Russian space station.
China put a human into orbit in 2003, and has a generally ambitious space program, with intentions of lunar landings.
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Urwumpe says
Russia uses Soyuz, Proton, Rockot, Dnepr and Shtil launchers and are working on a few new rockets.
The Soyuz family is due for a further upgrade beyond the current FG standard, being a compromise to the more radical Rus redesign proposed earlier. Instead of one standard launcher with varying upper stages (Fregat, Ikar), two versions are now in development, a small Soyuz-1 and a larger Soyuz-3.
The Angara rocket family is also still under development, replacing Proton, Zenit and compete with Soyuz for unmanned payloads.
Rocket and Dnepr are former ICBMs, that are launched for cheap because of disarmament treaties. The Shtil is similar, it is a submarine launched missile, that is obsolete and getting phased out by doing space launches.
Russia and China don't cooperate in their space programs at all since the early 1970s. While Chinese stuff looks very Russian, the Chinese actually developed this by reverse engineering Russian components which Chinese businessmen bought at auctions. There are also critical differences in the design philosophies between both nations, China has for example no problem using toxic fuels for manned rockets, while Russia (and the western spaceflight agencies) are against it.