The Russian "Nauka" ISS Module ("FGB-2"/"MLM") Will Be Further Delayed

MLM module faces lengthy delays

During 2013, the launch of the MLM module was re-scheduled to April and then to June 2014. In the meantime, tests of the MLM at RKK Energia revealed a leaking fueling valve within the propulsion system of the spacecraft. The damage was serious enough to require a complex procedure of cutting away the valve and welding in a new one. Before committing to the repairs, engineers had to practice it on a full-scale prototype of the MLM module known in Russian as Kompleksny Stend, KS.

Further inspections of MLM at RKK Energia apparently found contamination inside the propulsion system, which would require a lengthy cleaning. According to some reports, it would take up to 10 months to resolve all the issues with the spacecraft.

As a result, it was decided to return the MLM back to GKNPTs Khrunichev for repairs. On Oct. 22, 2013, the Interfax news agency reported that all the repairs at GKNPTs Khrunichev would take a year and a half to complete. According to a poster on the online forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, latest plans called for the launch of the MLM module in September 2015. The head of RKK Energia Vitaly Lopota told the RIA Novosti news agency that no decision for the return of the module back to GKNPTs Khrunichev had been made yet. At the same time, Lopota admitted that he had not certified the spacecraft for launch. …

Please note a few things:

• The Russians admitting upfront several technical problems.
• Seemingly small problems (a leaky valve and "contamination" in the propulsion system) will take 18 months (!) to fix. I know space is hard, but the Russians can cobble space worthy stuff together if they want, and do that fast and rather reliable. (Plus, they have been flying FGB modules literally for decades now.) 
• Nobody is threatening to make "hard conclusions", nobody is calling for heads to be cut off, nobody is demanding that that damned module finally flies. (cf. 2013 Proton explosion)
• Nobody has committed suicide died suddenly and unexpected. (cf. the botched 2012 Progress pressure testing)

To me, this stinks. That is not the way the Russians usually handle things.

I think the Russians are going to delay Nauka as long as the ISS is being operated – and they will launch Nauka only sometime before the ISS is going to be decommissioned.

Why?

• Nauka is the planned core module of their post-ISS space station (first to be docked to the ISS, detached at the ISS's end of life).
• They can get by on the ISS without any additional modules.
• They can't afford to build another large module (FGB-2 was build in the 1990s as an ISS backup module for FGB-1 – they haven't built any large modules for two decades!)
• They can't afford to build a completely new space station in the post-ISS time.

So I think they are trying to "safe" FGB-2 for the post-ISS time (plus any ISS equipment they can reuse). Why launch Nauka now? As long as there is an ISS, they don't need Nauka – they need it once the ISS is gone. Any time Nauka spends in space will shorten the life span of the post-ISS space station. I call bull on the Russians.