Russia’s Krylo-SV Reusable Rocket To Conduct Drop Test

Russia’s Krylo-SV reusable space launch vehicle will conduct its first drop tests in September, a representative of TsNIIMASH, a subsidiary of Roscosmos State Corp. that runs the program, told Aviation Week.

The company displayed the vehicle’s mockup at the Army 2023 defense forum in Kubinka, near Moscow.

The scaled-down, 6-m-long Krylo-SV technology demonstrator will be dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of 3 km to check its ability to glide down and land as an aircraft. To do so, the vehicle is equipped with a folding wing, tail fins and aircraft landing gear developed with United Aircraft Corp. 

It also has small turbojet engines in the nose for steering during descent. A TsNIIMASH presentation at Army 2023 showed two engines to be used by Krylo-SV: a 150-kg-thrust MGTD-150 designed by Simonov Design Bureau and a 55-kg-thrust R500 by Russia’s Reynolds Co.

The next trials are planned for 2025, when a prototype that is twice as long will be launched to 110 km and fly about 400 km back to the launch site. Due to the soft flightpath, the vehicle will not need a heavy heat shield.

The Krylo-SV folding wing solution is to be offered for the first stage of a future SLK, ultralight class rocket. This two-stage launch vehicle is to be able to deliver 600 kg of payload to orbit and is being studied by Khrunichev Space Center.