| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Country of Origin | Soviet Union |
| Applications | Carry passengers and supplies to low Earth orbit and back |
| Orbit regimes | Low Earth orbit |
| Operator | Soviet space program |
| Derived from | Soyuz |
| Production | |
| Status | Canceled, 1989 |
| Launched | None |
The Zarya spacecraft was a secret Soviet project of the late 1980s aiming to design and build a large, manned, vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) space capsule,[1] a much larger replacement for the Soyuz spacecraft. The project was shelved in 1989, "on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse."[1]
After the project was shelved in January 1989, for financial reasons, the name was reused for Zarya the first of the components of the International Space Station.
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The Zarya spacecraft was designed around a bell shaped re-entry section or Descent Module like the Soyuz spacecraft but it did not have a spherical orbital module. It had a smaller service module, also known as an instrumentation and propulsion module.
The Zarya spacecraft would have differed from all previous spacecraft by having an array of a dozen rockets for making a soft landing upon return to Earth, without using a parachute.[1] This would have been much like the McDonnell Douglas DC-X prototype.
The Zarya spacecraft would have brought crew and supplies to Mir, or supplies only in automated mode if need be, and it would also have been a general purpose workhorse for assembling or fixing other spacecraft in orbit.
It would have had a normal crew of two to four, and offered the possibility of carrying a maximum of twelve if used as a Mir lifeboat.