Energia Vulkan

Vulkan Herkules

Mission Profile

Energia Vulkan (also known as Herkules) was a Soviet super heavy-lift concept that would have been the most powerful member of the Energia family, using eight liquid-propellant strap-on boosters rather than the standard four. Towering 82 m tall with a 7.8 m diameter and a projected liftoff mass of 3,072 tonnes, its three stages would have generated 49,329 kN of combined thrust and delivered 36,000 kg to low Earth orbit. Studied in the late 1980s as part of an ambitious post-Buran expansion of Soviet space capabilities, the program was cancelled before any hardware was produced following the collapse of the Soviet Union.