Fregat is an upper stage developed by NPO Lavochkin in the 1990s. It has been used in some Soyuz and Zenit launch vehicles, but it is universal. It can be used as a part of any medium and heavy class launch vehicles. Fregat became operational in February 2000. Its liquid propellant engine uses unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) oxidizer. With a success rate of 97.3%—including two failures and one partial failure—the Fregat is among the most reliable upper stages worldwide. It has successfully deployed over 300 payloads into various orbits and is the only upper stage capable of placing payloads into three or more distinct orbits in a single launch.

Description

The Fregat upper stage is a versatile and autonomous vehicle designed to inject large payloads into a range of orbits, including low, medium, and geosynchronous. Additionally, it serves as an escape stage for sending space probes on interplanetary missions, such as the Venus Express and Mars Express. Developed by NPO Lavochkin in the 1990s, the Fregat features six spherical tanks—four for propellants and two for avionics—arranged in a circle. Its main engine is centrally positioned, allowing for a compact design with a diameter larger than its height. Structural support is provided by eight struts passing through the tanks, which also transfer thrust loads to the launcher. Fregat operates independently from the lower stages of its launch vehicle, with its own guidance, navigation, attitude control, tracking, and telemetry systems. The Fregat’s design was largely based on the spacecraft bus used in the Soviet Phobos program of the late 1980s, itself based on the architecture used for the Soviet lunar probes developed at NPO Lavochkin in the 1960s. Fregat also integrated several flight-proven subsystems and components from previous spacecraft and rockets. This approach ensured high reliability and accelerated development. Fregat was flight-qualified in February 2000 and successfully completed four missions that same year. Currently used as the fourth stage on Soyuz launch vehicles, the Fregat’s S5.92 engine is capable of up to 25 ignitions, with seven demonstrated during flight. This allows it to execute complex mission profiles that would be impossible for the launch vehicle alone. The stage provides both three-axis and spin stabilization for spacecraft payloads. Fregat uses storable, hypergolic propellants—unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4, also called NTO or amyl) as the oxidizer, which ignite spontaneously upon contact. To date, Fregat has successfully deployed over 300 payloads into various orbits and remains the only upper stage capable of placing payloads into three or more distinct orbits in a single launch.

Fregat upper stage launch statistics

Failures

August 2014 failure

The Arianespace-operated flight of a Fregat MT ended in failure on 22 August 2014 after the vehicle deposited two EU/ESA Galileo navigation satellites into the wrong orbit. The lift off at 12:27:11 UTC from the Sinnamary launch site near Kourou, French Guiana, appeared to go well. However, a failure was only apparent later when, after the second firing of the Fregat MT upper stage had taken place, the satellites were detected as being in the wrong orbit. The Independent Inquiry Board formed to analyze the causes of the "anomaly" announced its definitive conclusions on 7 October 2014 following a meeting at Arianespace headquarters in Évry, near Paris. The failure occurred during the flight of the Fregat fourth stage. It occurred about 35 minutes after liftoff, at the beginning of the ballistic phase preceding the second ignition of this stage. The scenario that led to an error in the orbital injection of the satellites was precisely reconstructed, as follows: The root cause of the failure of flight VS09 is therefore a shortcoming in the system thermal analysis performed during stage design, and not an operator error during stage assembly. Since 22 August 2014, Soyuz ST-B launch vehicles with Fregat-MT upper stages have performed three successful launches, six Galileo navigation satellites have been inserted into their target orbits in frame of Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre ongoing ESA programme.

July 2017 partial failure

In July 2017, a Russian-operated rideshare flight of a Fregat upper stage ended with 9 of 72 small satellites dead-on-orbit.

November 2017 failure

The Russian-operated flight of a Fregat upper stage ended in failure after the vehicle deposited the upper stage, a Meteor MS-1 weather satellite, and 18 secondary cubesats back into Earth's atmosphere due to the first Fregat burn being ignited with the stage in the wrong orientation. The guidance computer on the Soyuz rocket's Fregat upper stage was mis-programmed, causing it to begin an unnecessary turn that left it in the wrong orientation for a critical engine burn required to enter orbit.

Debris

The Fregats did not have enough impulse capability to de-orbit themselves after placing their payload into orbit and so several have remained in orbit as space debris. The Fregat-SB upper stage rocket used to launch the Russian Spektr-R satellite into orbit in 2011, broke into multiple pieces on May 8, 2020 creating even more debris than normal.

Versions

Fregat-M/Fregat-MT

Fregat-M/Fregat-MT tanks have ball-shaped additions on the tops of the tanks. These additions increase the load capability of the propellant from 5350 kg to 6640 kg, without causing any other changes to the physical dimensions of the vehicle.

Fregat-SB

A version called Fregat-SB can be used with Zenit-2SB launch vehicle. This version is a variation of Fregat-M with a block of drop-off tanks ("SBB" or Сбрасываемый Блок Баков in Russian) which makes increased payload capability possible. The torus-shaped SBB weighs 360 kg and contains up to 3050 kg of propellant. The total dry weight of the Fregat-SB (including SBB) is 1410 kg and the maximum propellant carrying capacity is 10150 kg. Fregat-SB was launched for the first time on 20 January 2011, when it lifted the Elektro-L weather satellite into geosynchronous orbit.

All versions data