Media: Center That Buried Russia's Space Ambitions Worked On Oreshnik

• 26.12.2024, 12:01

The Luna-25 project was a major space failure for the Russian Federation.

An analysis of the debris of the Russian ballistic missile Oreshnik, which the occupiers used to strike Dnipro on November 21, showed that some of its parts were produced back in 2017. In addition, it turned out that the Scientific and Production Center for Automation and Instrumentation named after Academician N. A. Pilyugin (SPCAI), which had previously distinguished itself with the failed space project Luna-25, took part in the work on its creation, Defense Express reports.

The publication recalled that SPCAI is engaged in the development of control systems for ballistic missiles, launch vehicles, space boosters and spacecraft. One of the most famous projects in which the enterprise participated was the Luna-25 lunar exploration station, which crashed into the Earth's satellite on August 19, 2023.

This project had been going on since 1997, the journalists emphasized. Because of this, the Russian Federation lost the lunar race to other countries, including India, which successfully landed its automatic station Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon on August 23.

It is interesting that Roscosmos named the malfunction of the BIUS-L angular velocity measurement unit, for which the SPCAI was responsible, as the publication added.

Initially, they planned to install the BIB device in Luna-25 instead of the BIUS-L, but they could not make it in the Russian Federation due to sanctions. Because of this, the Russians were also unable to purchase the finished Astrix device from Airbus, the journalists emphasized.

The publication noted that the BIB was supposed to weigh 1.5 kg, while the weight of the BIUS-L system from the SPCAI was 10 kg. In addition, it took 18 months to finalize the device.

According to the publication, it was the SPCAI that developed the control system for Oreshnik and supplied some other parts for the missile.