Kliper

Kliper (Клипер, English: Clipper) was an early-2000s proposed partially-reusable crewed spacecraft concept by RSC Energia. Due to lack of funding from the ESA and RSA, the project was indefinitely postponed by 2006. Designed primarily to replace the Soyuz spacecraft, Kliper was proposed in two versions: as a pure lifting body design and as spaceplane with small wings. In either case, the craft would have been able to glide into the atmosphere at an angle that produces much less stress on the human occupants than the current Soyuz. Kliper was intended to be designed to be able to carry up to six people and to perform ferry services between Earth and the International Space Station. In February 2004 Nikolai Moiseyev, the deputy director of Russian Federal Space Agency (FSA) told journalists that the Kliper project had been included in the Russian federal space program for 2005-15. At that point he announced that if the program was implemented successfully, the first launch would take place in five years' time. Kliper had been developed since 2000 and reportedly relied heavily on research studies as well as proposals for a small Russian lifting body spacecraft from the 1990s. Externally its design was comparable to the cancelled European minishuttle Hermes or the NASA study X-38. It was planned to be the successor to the Soyuz spacecraft, which has been built as various versions since 1961. In 2005 Kliper was displayed in several air shows around Europe and Asia, in order to recruit international partners to co-fund and co-develop the spacecraft. The Russian Space Agency especially looked to Europe as the European Space Agency (ESA) had become its major partner in space activities during the preceding years. In May 2005, rumours started in the press that Europe would join the Kliper project in a specially funded venture that would be part of the Aurora Programme. These rumours turned out to be correct when both Russian and European space officials announced their intent to cooperate on Kliper during the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget on June 10, 2005.