Kliper (Клипер, English: Clipper) was an early-2000s proposed partially-reusable (excluding orbital section and thermal protection shield) crewed spacecraft concept by RSC Energia.

In 2005 Kliper was displayed in several air shows around Europe and Asia, in order to recruit international partners to co-fund and co-develop the spacecraft.

These rumours turned out to be correct when both Russian and European space officials announced their intent to cooperate on Kliper during the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget on June 10, 2005.

[citation needed] The addition of Japan would make Kliper a truly multinational project, potentially combining the rugged reliability of Russian launchers with Japanese computer technology.

An article on December 3, 2005[citation needed] cited the president of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation Nikolai Sevastyanov that "the first regular lift-off is scheduled for 2012, while a complete transport system will be in place by 2015."

After the termination of the Russian Space Agency's tender for a new spacecraft, Energia announced that this would push its Kliper proposal's first flight — if developed at all — back further.

In the same context, Alain Fournier-Sicre, head of the ESA permanent mission in the Russian Federation, also stated that: "The objective is to have a vehicle which is more comfortable than the Soyuz capsule which will be used with pilots and four passengers… It is meant to service the space station and to go between Earth and an orbit around the Moon with six crew members."

In denying funding for the study ESA members stated that, among other factors that seemed unfavourable, under the current Russian proposal Europe would not share control over the design of the program and would be limited to being a small industrial contributor.

Dordain concluded that he was convinced that European support for Kliper was vital for ESA's future involvement in space transport and that a favourable decision can be achieved until June 2006.

Very negative comments relative to Kliper were brought by the various national delegations at the December meeting, in particular by the French Minister of Research François Goulard.

At the end of 2005, Roskosmos announced that a tender for Kliper would be held in January 2006 between RKK Energia, Khrunichev and Molniya with a selection date of February 3, 2006.

They decided to fund a study under a program labelled Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) which started in September 2006 and evaluate a capsule type concept, derived from Soyuz.

[13] The newly appointed president of RSC Energia, Vitaly Lopota, confirmed that Kliper would not be displayed at the 2007 MAKS air show.

He said that Energia would spend more time on the project analysis, perform additional dynamic modeling, revise the design and appearance and then would come up with new proposals for Roscosmos.

In connection with this new design, Kliper would feature a launch escape system that would enable it to detach from the carrier rocket if an abort of the mission during orbital ascent is required.

Leading designer Vladimir Daneev commented on this issue in June 2005: Kliper, as a vehicle alone, would have been primarily a crewed spaceship, carrying six cosmonauts and payloads of up to 700 kilograms (mostly experiments and other equipment used for carrying through experiments in orbit) and was planned to stay in orbit for approximately 15 days independently and for up to 360 days if docked to the International Space Station.

Although far-fetched, this corresponds to announcements by the Russian Space Agency that according to a lunar mission study, using the Soyuz, a landing on the Moon could be achieved within the next decade.

This configuration was unlike anything seen so far for a crewed space vehicle, with the solar arrays needed for electrical power vastly bigger than the habitable volume at the centre.

Though this aim had already been suggested, the comment was made in the context of facility upgrades for Kourou that are already under way since 2003 and expected to be finished in 2007 with the first launch of a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana in 2008.

It had been suggested that Kliper could have been launched from both Baikonur and Kourou, by Alan Thirkettle, head of ESA's human spaceflight, microgravity and exploration directorate, in December 2005.