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Comment by _lbaq | Hacker News Reader

Not quite accurate, the Russian space agenecy (and before that the Soviet) have tried several times to replace the Soyuz, without succeeding for various reason, but the main reason is lack of resources. Right now it looks like maybe the Soyuz 5 rocket and the Federation capsule may make it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_(spacecraft)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

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Buran was never intended as a replacement for Soyuz, I suppose. Buran + Energiya were more a replacement to Proton, and a Space Shuttle-like capability to build advanced weapons systems in space, which would require extensive human labor and maintenance.

The space crew for these systems were intended to be armed with laser pistols, with prototypes produced: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a21527129/...

I'm not sure if Buran ever had any purpose apart from keeping up with Joneses. I mean, look at its shape. Shuttle's (comparatively) huge wings are there for polar-once-around that military asked for; why does Buran have the same? I've never ever heard of a polar-once-around requirement for Buran, despite the design considerations being more or less in the open now.

One of the Buran designers openly admitted that they were forced to copy Shuttle since it was 'already working'.

Soyuz 5 is effectively a man rated Zenith. Zenith is made in Ukraine, and that's the end of story.

Its not, its a new design around a methane engine, its meant in certain configurations to replace Zenith and Proton, just like Angara, it greatly overlaps with Angara which makes many question that project.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz5.html

Nomenclature matters, the Soyuz 5 was a fatter Zenith integrated in Russia. The Soyuz 5.* line built around methane was originally a completely different project that was haphazardly renamed in order to conceal that the original Soyuz 5 programme went nowhere.

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