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Russia is gearing up to launch a brand-new rocket before the end of this year. In an interview published yesterday by state news agency TASS, Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov confirmed the debut of the Soyuz-5 before the end of December. The rocket will launch from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, and a successful flight would be a historic first test flight for a vehicle that’s been in the works for more than ten years. Roscosmos plans several trial launches, but a transition to operational service isn’t expected until 2028 at the earliest.

The Soyuz-5, or Irtysh to use its other name, isn’t so revolutionary in concept. Instead, it’s descended directly from the Zenit-2 rocket that had its debut in the 1980s and was designed by Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. Zenit rockets were manufactured in Ukraine, but they featured engines produced by Russia. The RD-171 engines of Zenit represented a rare case of continued post-Soviet cooperation in spaceflight, and in a sense even military aerospace: the Ukrainian engines had their origins in the Soviet Energia booster of the 1980s. That collaboration ended abruptly in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In late 2023, Russia reportedly struck the very production facility in Ukraine where Zenit rockets were once assembled.

The Soyuz-5 is a Zenit derivative that’s been re-engineered to be domestically built and larger. The new version obviates the need for Ukrainian contributions by reworking various elements like engines and instrument pods to ensure that all key components are of domestic Russian origin. To Moscow, the changeover represents a strategic victory: it’s not just an end to reliance on former Soviet states in the aerospace industry, but a step toward phasing out the much-older Proton-M rocket as well.

The Soyuz-5 occupies a middle ground between past and future. It’s a medium-lift rocket with a capacity of just under 17 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. That’s achievable in part due to marginally enlarged propellant tanks relative to Zenit. The core of the Soyuz-5, however, is its RD-171MV engine, a modern member of a family that dates back to the Soviet Energia booster of the 1980s.

The Energia program featured one of the most powerful rockets ever developed. It provided the upper stage for the Soviet Union’s single orbiting space shuttle, Buran, which launched a single uncrewed mission during the Cold War. The most recent variant of the RD-171 family of rocket engines is the RD-171MV, which recently received a certification for the next-generation Amur rocket that could fly as soon as 2030. The RD-171MV is notable for one reason: it is the first version to have had no Ukrainian parts. Fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, the RD-171MV produces more than three times the thrust of the Space Shuttle main engine, and it’s currently the most powerful liquid-fueled rocket engine in service.

That said, Soyuz-5 itself is designed to be an expendable rocket. Newer competitors—most notably SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket—are designed around reusability. To that end, it’s unclear if Soyuz-5 will ever have a meaningful share of the commercial launch market.

For Roscosmos, however, it plays an important role as part of the agency’s short- and medium-term planning. With funds stretched thin due to the expenses of the war and international sanctions, designing and developing a completely new and reusable rocket had proven difficult. The Amur rocket, also known as Soyuz-7, was expected to fill that gap. Built around a reusable first stage and methane-fueled engines, Amur was intended as a long-term design that could compete with SpaceX in terms of price. But Amur has suffered repeated delays, and now doesn’t have a new target launch date earlier than 2030.

In that context, Soyuz-5 is a stopgap solution to keep things going at a time when a lack of funds has left Russia with more holes than bridges. It allows Russia to move forward with space launches, even if it means doing so with technology that dates back to the Soviet era.

The commercial future of Soyuz-5, on the other hand, is more unclear. The global launch industry has changed a great deal in the last ten years, with competitors like SpaceX and Chinese providers offering cheaper and more flexible services. Russia already flies Soyuz-2 rockets for crewed flights and Angara boosters for heavier payloads, but neither has found a major foothold in the international launch market. It remains to be seen if Soyuz-5 can change that.

That said, the simple fact that Roscosmos has been able to get Soyuz-5 into a launch-ready state after a decade of development is an accomplishment. A successful launch in December would be a vindication that Russia can still put new rockets on the launch pad in spite of sanctions and budgetary constraints. For all of its limitations, Soyuz-5 is a meaningful step toward the next phase of Russia’s aerospace industry, even if that next phase could be a generation away.