“This launch marks Kazakhstan’s formal entry into the club of space powers.” — Dmitry Bakanov, Roscosmos Chief
On 30 April 2026, Russia successfully conducted the maiden test flight of its Soyuz-5 medium-lift launch vehicle from Site 45/1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan — the first completely new launch vehicle Russia has debuted in over 12 years. The rocket lifted off at 18:00 GMT, executed a suborbital trajectory, and delivered a mass-dimensional payload mockup before re-entering the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos confirmed that both the first and second stages performed nominally throughout the flight. The test marks a significant milestone for the Baiterek Project — a long-delayed joint Russian-Kazakhstani space venture — and represents Moscow’s most critical bid to restore competitive relevance in global space commerce after years of steep decline.
📜 Why Russia Needed Soyuz-5
The origins of Soyuz-5 lie in a geopolitical rupture. The Zenit rocket family — Russia’s previous workhorse medium-lift vehicle — was manufactured in Ukraine by the Yuzhnoye design bureau. Following the deterioration of Russian-Ukrainian relations after 2014, and the complete cessation of joint activities after 2022, Russia lost access to Zenit production entirely. The last Zenit launch from Baikonur took place in December 2017.
Development of a domestic replacement began under the codename Fenix (Phoenix) in 2015, before being formally named Soyuz-5 — also called Irtysh (a river through Russia and Kazakhstan) and Sunkar (Kazakh for “falcon”). Despite the name, Soyuz-5 shares no design lineage with the historic Soyuz rocket family. It is an entirely new vehicle, built by RKTs Progress in Samara. Repeated delays pushed the target launch from 2022 all the way to 2026.
Don’t confuse: Soyuz-5 is not an upgrade of the historic Soyuz rocket (descended from Korolev’s R-7 missile). It is an entirely new vehicle that only shares the “Soyuz” brand name. Also note: it was Russia’s first new launch vehicle in 12+ years — not its first launch in 12 years.
✨ Technical Overview: The Soyuz-5 Rocket
Soyuz-5 is a two-stage, medium-lift launch vehicle standing 62.5 metres tall with a diameter of approximately 4.1 metres — slightly wider than the Zenit’s 3.9 m, a design choice that allowed engineers to reuse existing tooling from the Proton rocket programme.
| Stage | Engine | Thrust | Propellant | Burn Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Stage | RD-171MV (4 combustion chambers, single engine) | >7.8 meganewtons (~7,200 kN at sea level) | Kerolox (Kerosene + Liquid Oxygen) | ~179 seconds |
| Second Stage | RD-0124MS (Chemical Automatics Design Bureau) | ~592 kN (vacuum) | Kerolox | Suborbital cutoff |
The rocket’s most notable feature is its first-stage engine — the RD-171MV — widely regarded as the world’s most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine. It is derived from the Soviet-era RD-170 originally developed for the Energia super-heavy-lift vehicle. The kerolox propellant is both more efficient and far less environmentally harmful than the hypergolic fuels (toxic nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine) used by the older Proton rocket.
Payload capacity: Up to 17 metric tonnes to LEO and approximately 5 metric tonnes to GTO — nearly double the older Soyuz-2’s capacity (~7.5 tonnes to LEO). An optional third stage (Blok DM-03, also used on Angara A5) can be fitted for geostationary missions.
Think of the RD-171MV as the world’s most powerful car engine — but for rockets. It uses the same basic idea as a jet engine (burn fuel + oxygen = thrust), but generates force equivalent to roughly 1.1 million kg of push. The switch from Proton’s toxic fuels to kerosene + liquid oxygen is like switching from diesel to cleaner-burning petrol — same job, far less environmental damage.
🤝 The Baiterek Project & Russia-Kazakhstan Space Cooperation
Soyuz-5 is the centrepiece of the Baiterek Space Rocket Complex project, a bilateral framework initiated in 2004 during a summit between Presidents Putin and Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan’s lease of the Baikonur Cosmodrome was extended to 2050, with annual rent set at $115 million.
Kazakhstan’s core motivation is eliminating the Proton rocket — whose hypergolic propellants are highly toxic — from Baikonur operations, transitioning to the cleaner Soyuz-5. The project had a troubled history: a 2023 claim by the Baiterek joint venture of approximately 2 billion rubles (~$30 million) against a Roscosmos subsidiary over an incomplete environmental impact assessment caused additional delays. Kazakhstan also hedged by pursuing separate space cooperation with China — in December 2025, a Kazakhstani nanosatellite was launched on a Chinese rocket, signalling diminishing confidence in Roscosmos’s timelines.
The successful Soyuz-5 launch has, for now, renewed confidence in the Baiterek framework. Roscosmos has stated its ambition to launch 30 rockets per year and deploy 1,000 spacecraft within the next decade.
Baiterek Key Numbers: Initiated in 2004 → Baikonur lease to 2050 → Annual rent $115 million. “2004 → 2050 → $115M” are the three most exam-testable facts about this agreement.
🌍 Russia’s Declining Space Power: The Strategic Context
The Soyuz-5 launch must be understood against a backdrop of significant structural decline in Russia’s space programme:
- 2025 launches: Russia conducted only 17 orbital launches — its lowest since Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight in 1961. This compares to 181 by the USA (of which 165 were SpaceX Falcon 9) and 91 by China.
- Revenue loss: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Roscosmos lost approximately 90% of its commercial launch contracts and 180 billion rubles (~$2.1 billion) in export revenues.
- Budget shrinkage: Roscosmos budget as a share of federal spending is declining — from 0.95% in 2021 to a projected 0.63% by 2027.
- Market share: Russia’s global launch market share has collapsed to under 5%.
Soyuz-5 is thus not merely a new rocket — it is a strategic asset intended to rebuild Russia’s credibility as a reliable launch provider, particularly among non-Western partners.
Russia’s 2025 launch count (17) is now lower than New Zealand’s, driven largely by Rocket Lab. When a legacy space superpower falls behind a small island nation in annual launches, it illustrates how dramatically commercial spaceflight has disrupted the old state-dominated order. Can Soyuz-5 reverse this trajectory — or is Russia’s space decline structural and irreversible?
⚖️ Global Launch Market: How Soyuz-5 Stacks Up
In raw payload capacity, Soyuz-5 is broadly competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (~22.8 tonnes to LEO). However, the Falcon 9’s dominance rests on first-stage reusability — Soyuz-5 is currently an expendable vehicle, requiring an entirely new rocket for each launch. This is a significant cost disadvantage in a market increasingly defined by reusability.
The EU’s Ariane 6, China’s Long March 5, and India’s LVM3 all compete in or near the same segment. Russia’s kerolox architecture aligns with global environmental trends. In the longer term, Soyuz-5’s first stage is envisioned as a building block for Russia’s proposed Yenisei super-heavy-lift vehicle — comparable in ambition to NASA’s SLS or SpaceX’s Starship — targeting lunar and deep-space missions. This programme remains aspirational, with no confirmed launch date.
| Rocket | Country | LEO Payload | Reusable? | Propellant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soyuz-5 | Russia | 17 tonnes | No (expendable) | Kerolox |
| Falcon 9 | USA (SpaceX) | 22.8 tonnes | Yes (1st stage) | Kerolox |
| Ariane 6 | EU (ESA) | ~21.6 tonnes | No | Liquid H₂ + LOX |
| Long March 5 | China | ~25 tonnes | No | Liquid H₂ + LOX |
| LVM3 | India (ISRO) | ~10 tonnes | No | Solid + Cryogenic |
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Soyuz-5’s maiden test flight took place on 30 April 2026 from Site 45/1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The RD-171MV is regarded as the world’s most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine, delivering over 7.8 meganewtons of thrust. It uses kerolox propellant (kerosene + liquid oxygen).
Russia conducted only 17 orbital launches in 2025 — its lowest count since Yuri Gagarin’s historic 1961 flight. The USA launched 181 (165 by SpaceX Falcon 9) and China launched 91.
The Baiterek Project was initiated in 2004 during a Putin-Nazarbayev summit. Kazakhstan’s Baikonur lease was extended to 2050 at $115 million per year.
Soyuz-5 is an expendable vehicle — it cannot reuse its first stage. This is a key cost disadvantage compared to SpaceX Falcon 9, which recovers and reuses its first stage, dramatically reducing per-launch costs.
