Russia's Soyuz-5 Rocket Not a Zenit Modernization, Says Former Yuzhmash CEO

MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The new Russian launch vehicle Soyuz-5 is an original design, not a modernization of the Soviet Zenit rocket, former CEO of the Russian industrial group Yuzhmash Vyacheslav Smolenko told TASS. The first launch of the medium-class Soyuz-5 carrier rocket from the Baikonur spaceport took place on April 30. "This is not an upgraded Zenit. <...> This is a new rocket, a completely new one," Smolenko emphasized. He refuted the notion that the rocket is a design iteration, noting that fundamentally different technological approaches and components were used in the creation of the Soyuz-5 rocket. Smolenko previously told TASS that Ukraine had irrevocably lost its Zenit launch vehicle space complex due to a political confrontation with Russia. The Zenit was previously recognized as the best rocket in the world in terms of efficiency, cost per kilogram of payload, and launch convenience, but this potential is lost forever. The state-owned Makarov Southern Machine-Building Plant Production Association, known as Yuzhmash, was a major Ukrainian enterprise producing rocket and space technology and other high-tech products, located in Dnepropetrovsk. Yuzhmash developed systems for both defense (the SS-18 Satan missile and the SS-24, or Scalpel, rail launch vehicle) and civilian applications, including the Block E system for landing a man on the lunar surface and returning him to the orbital module. The plant developed the Zenit-3SL rocket. The Russian branch of Yuzhmash ceased to exist in 2014.