Russia’s Soyuz 5 will soon come alive. But will anyone want to fly on it?

The Soyuz 5 rocket, also named Irtysh for the river that flows through Russia and Kazakhstan, serves that purpose. Its first stage is powered by a single RD-171MV engine, which produces three times more thrust than a single Raptor 3 engine at sea level, and is part of a family of engines that are the most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engines in the world. RD-171MV uses only Russian components.

Russian officials also plan to use the Soyuz 5 rocket as the “boost” stage of a super-heavy lift rocket, known as the Yenisei, that will be used for the manned lunar program. However the Yenisei rocket appears to be one of those Russian space initiatives that is forever stuck in an obscure development phase – often talked about as a national priority, but rarely moving forward.

Which market is there?

But the Soyuz 5 rocket is now very real, and should be launched within the next month. The question is, which market will it serve? Russia currently has Soyuz 2, which has about half the lift capacity, for crew and cargo missions to the International Space Station, as well as the launch of smaller spacecraft. There is also a series of Angara rockets that have come online during the last decade.

In terms of performance, the Soyuz 5 lies between the Soyuz 2 and the Angara A5 rocket. So what is the demand for an 18 ton capacity rocket in low Earth orbit? One concern is that the number of geostationary satellites launched annually, which were once the basis of the Proton vehicle, has declined sharply.

The second is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has taken Russian rockets off the table for many Western satellite operators. At the same time, international competition in the medium-lift market has intensified. The number of government and commercial options in China is increasing, and India’s launch offerings are also increasing. And for any company or country that is mostly concerned about price, Russia almost certainly can’t beat the reusable Falcon 9 booster offered by SpaceX.