Aviation and space system spiral. Aerospace system "spiral"

(Moscow region).

Project Spiral, begun in the 1960s, was a response to the US X-20 "Dyna Soar" space interceptor-reconnaissance-bomber program.

Around 1964, a group of scientists and Air Force specialists developed the concept of creating a fundamentally new aerospace force, which would most rationally integrate the ideas of an airplane, a rocket plane and a space object and would satisfy the above requirements.
In mid-1965, the Minister of Aviation Industry P.V. Dementyev instructed the A.I. Mikoyan Design Bureau to develop a project for this system, called “Spiral”. G. E. Lozino-Lozinsky was appointed chief designer of the system. From the Air Force, the management of the work was carried out by S. G. Frolov, military-technical support was entrusted to the head of Central Research Institute 30 - Z. A. Ioffe, as well as his deputy for science V. I. Semenov and the heads of departments - V. A. Matveev and O. B . Rukosuev - the main ideologists of the VKS concept.

The development of the Spiral system and its orbital aircraft began at the OKB-155 design bureau of A. I. Mikoyan in the summer of 1966. The system was expected to be ready for operation in the mid-1970s. Both in the USA and in the USSR these programs were discontinued at various stages of development.

The head of the Spiral project was Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky.

Booster plane

A powerful booster airship (weight 52 tons, length 38 m, wingspan 16.5 m) was supposed to accelerate to six times the speed of sound (6), then from its “back” at an altitude of 28-30 km a 10-ton a manned orbital aircraft with a length of 8 m and a span of 7.4 m.

« The aircraft, which accelerates up to Mach 6, was supposed to be used as a passenger airliner, which, of course, was rational: its high speed characteristics would make it possible to increase speeds civil aviation ».

The booster aircraft was the first technologically revolutionary detailed design of a hypersonic aircraft with air-breathing engines. At the 40th Congress of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), held in 1989 in Malaga (Spain), representatives of the American National Administration in Aeronautics and Research outer space(NASA) praised the booster aircraft, noting that it was “designed in accordance with modern requirements.”

Due to the requirement for large funds for fundamentally new propulsion, aerodynamic and materials science technologies to create such a hypersonic booster aircraft, the latest versions of the project considered a less expensive and more quickly achievable possibility of creating not a hypersonic, but a supersonic booster, which was considered a modified strike reconnaissance aircraft T-4 (“100”), however, this was not implemented either.

Orbital plane

Bor-1 - 07/15/1969, prototype made of textolite, scale 1:3, naturally burned out
Bor-2 - 12/06/1969, analogue of M 1:3, failure of the control system, ballista. descent, burned out
Bor-2 - 07/31/1970, analogue of M 1:3, successful flight
Bor-2 - 04/22/1971, analogue of M 1:3, protection burnout, short circuit, parachute did not come out, crashed
Bor-2 - 02/08/1972, analogue of M 1:3, successful flight, the device is stored in LII
Bor-3 - 05/24/1973, analogue of M 1:3, destruction of GO at an altitude of 5 km, the device crashed
Bor-3 - 07/11/1974, analogue of M 1:3, parachute damage, the device crashed
All launches were carried out from the Kapustin Yar test site).

Work on the creation of the “Spiral”, including analogues of its orbital aircraft, interrupted in 1969, was resumed in 1974. In 1976-1978, 7 test flights of the Mig-105.11 were carried out.

The subsonic analogue of the Mig-105.11 orbital aircraft was tested by pilots Pyotr Ostapenko, Igor Volk, Valery Menitsky, Alexander Fedotov. The MiG-105.11 was launched from under the fuselage of the Tu-95 K heavy bomber by Aviard Fastovets, the final stage of testing the analogue was carried out by Vasily Uryadov.

Also " on the basis of BOR-4, space-based maneuvering warheads were developed, the main task of which was to bomb America from space with minimal flight time to targets (5...7 minutes)" Lukashevich V.P., Financial Director of OJSC “International Consortium Multi-Purpose Aerospace Systems”.

Own works over “Spiral” (except for BOR analogues) were finally discontinued after the start of development of a larger, less technologically risky, seemingly more promising and in many ways repeating the American Space Shuttle program of the Energia-Buran project. Minister of Defense A. A. Grechko did not even give permission for orbital testing of the almost finished EPOS, drawing, according to various sources, the resolution “We will not engage in fantasies” or “This is fantasy. We need to do real work." The main specialists who had previously worked on the Spiral project were transferred from the A. I. Mikoyan Design Bureau and the Raduga Design Bureau by order of the Minister of Aviation Industry to the NPO Molniya.

IN given time an analogue aircraft 105.11 can be seen in the Central Museum of the Russian Air Force in Monino.

The influence of American programs on the project

The start of the Spiral program was influenced by the start of work on the American Dyna Soar program. The choice of the appearance of the Spiral orbital aircraft was not made entirely from scratch. When choosing the layout and control algorithms for the Spiral orbital aircraft, the designers closely followed American work and testing of unmanned vehicles “ ASSET"(1963-1965), " SV-5D"(1966-1967). By the time the preliminary project “Spirals” was released in the USSR, the United States had already conducted research on manned hypersonic aircraft at low flight speeds (“PILOT”) and flights of manned vehicles “ M2-F1», « M2-F2" and "HL-10", flight research was also envisaged " X-24" The results of these tests were known to the Mikoyan Design Bureau.

The closure of the Spiral program was influenced by the beginning of the creation of the Buran program as a response to the beginning of the American Space Shuttle program, as well as the closure of the PILOT program in 1975.

Also, according to NASA employees, the design of Bora-4 could have been influenced by data on the creation and testing of manned vehicles M2-F1, M2-F2, HL-10, X-24A, X-24B purchased by the Soviet Union.

Movie

Notes

Dyna-Soar (English Dynamic Soaring - “acceleration and planning”) in accordance with the re-entry technique

Unrealized USSR project. Part II

In continuation of the first part of the article, I will tell you about two space projects of the USSR, which were not destined to glorify our Motherland.

Buran.

The Soviet “shuttle” Buran was prepared not just for space exploration, but as a military system. This was the Soviet response to the American shuttle.

Looking at the American developments of shuttles in the USSR, they came to the conclusion that such a ship could carry nuclear weapons and use them to attack our territory from almost any point in near-Earth space. Therefore, the USSR began developing Buran.

A reinforced runway was built at the Yubileiny airfield in Baikonur specially for spaceplane landings. To begin with, a full-size analogue of the Buran was built with the designation BTS-002 (GLI) for flight tests in the Earth’s atmosphere.

At the tail of the spaceplane there were four turbojet engines, which allowed it to take off from a regular airfield.

The Buran cosmoplane made its first and, unfortunately, only space flight on November 15, 1988.

It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome using an Energia launch vehicle. The flight duration was 205 minutes, during which time the ship made two orbits around the Earth and landed on the runway built for it at Baikonur.

Self-landing "Buran"

Checking the Buran after landing

The flight took place without a crew in automatic mode using an on-board computer and software, unlike the American shuttles, which make last stage Landing must be done manually.

In 1990, to our great regret, work on the Energia-Buran program was suspended, and three years later everything was curtailed. The only Buran that flew into space was destroyed in 2002 due to the collapse of the roof of the room where it was stored along with finished copies of the Energia launch vehicle.

"Buran" under the rubble

The story of the Russian shuttle Buran ended before it even began.

Space fighter “Spiral”.

At the height of the Cold War, the most fantastic ideas appeared in our country, and most importantly, were implemented.

One of these ideas was the Spiral space fighter. The fighter was the USSR's decision to create its own aerospace system, and it was he who was supposed to become a powerful argument for our country in a possible war in space. The entire Spiral project consisted of three parts: a hypersonic booster aircraft, a two-stage rocket booster and an orbital aircraft.

Model of the space system "spiral"

According to the inventors' idea, the booster aircraft, along with all other parts of the project, was supposed to take off from the airfield and accelerate to a speed of about 7500 km/h. After reaching an altitude of 30 km, the orbital plane was supposed to separate from the booster plane and, thanks to a two-stage rocket accelerator, was supposed to accelerate to the first escape velocity - about 7.9 km/sec.

Thanks to this speed, the orbital aircraft very quickly reached low-Earth orbit and there already fulfilled the assigned task. combat mission: reconnaissance, interception of space targets by space-to-space missiles or bombing by space-to-ground missiles.

Thus, the orbital plane became a space fighter. The development of the Spiral project proceeded successfully and by the mid-70s, scientists already wanted to begin flying a fully equipped aerospace system. But the Minister of Defense of that time, Andrei Grechko, instead of approving the almost finished “Spiral” project, throws all the documentation on this project into the trash and declares: “We will not indulge in fantasies.”

Author

Varvara

Creativity, work on the modern idea of world knowledge and the constant search for answers

December 9th, 2012

... Fates brilliant designers turned out differently. Some of them, “noted” in civil matters, were widely known during their lifetime. And any boy who assembled a model airplane dreamed of being “like Tupolev, Ilyushin or Yakovlev.”

Others, who always worked only for the defense of the country, were kept secret until the end of their lives. Only after their departure we learned the names of Korolev, Glushko, Yangel, Chelomey and many others, paying them posthumous honors.

But there are special, complex and amazing destinies - these are designers who created something so unique in their lives that their name, breaking through the barriers of secrecy, became widely known during their lifetime. And this epoch-making creation, visible to everyone, coupled with the total closeness of the defense industry, overshadowed other truly significant thoughts, ideas, works, projects and achievements design talent. This was exactly the fate of the Chief Designer of the reusable orbital ship "Buran" Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky, whose centenary anniversary we celebrate on December 25, 2009.

It would seem that today we know a lot about him - the creator of "Buran", the chief designer of "Spiral", the General Designer of the aerospace system 9A-10485, better known as MAX...

In fact, we don’t know much more about it - in addition to Buran and MAX, under the leadership of G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky, NPO Molniya worked on almost a hundred (!) projects that are still classified...

It can be argued that today he is almost as “closed” as he was during his lifetime - that is why any information about this outstanding Designer is so valuable.

Early 60s. The Cold War is in full swing. In the United States, work is underway on the Dyna Soar program - the X20 hypersonic orbital rocket plane. As a response to this program, work on the development of our own rocket planes is being carried out in our country by many institutes and design bureaus, both by order of the government, in the form of R&D, and on their own initiative. But the development of the Spiral aerospace system was the first official large-scale topic supported by the country's leadership after a series of events that became the background to the project.

In accordance with the Air Force's five-year Thematic Plan for orbital and hypersonic aircraft, practical work on aeronautical astronautics in our country in 1965 was entrusted to OKB-155 of A.I. Mikoyan, where they were headed by the 55-year-old Chief Designer of the OKB, Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky. The topic of creating a two-stage air-orbital aircraft (in modern terminology - an aerospace system - AKS) received the index "Spiral". The Soviet Union was seriously preparing for a large-scale war in and from space.

In accordance with customer requirements, the designers began developing a reusable two-stage complex consisting of a hypersonic booster aircraft (HSA) and a military orbital aircraft (OS) with a rocket booster. The launch of the system was provided horizontally, using an accelerating cart, the takeoff occurred at a speed of 380-400 km/h. After reaching the required speed and altitude using the GSR engines, the OS was separated and further acceleration occurred using rocket engines two-stage accelerator operating on hydrogen fluoride fuel.

The combat manned single-seat reusable OS provided for use in the versions of a day photo reconnaissance aircraft, a radar reconnaissance aircraft, a space target interceptor, or an attack aircraft with a space-to-Earth class missile and could be used for inspection of space objects. The weight of the aircraft in all variants was 8800 kg, including 500 kg of combat load in the reconnaissance and interceptor variants and 2000 kg for the attack aircraft. The range of reference orbits was 130...150 km in altitude and 450...1350 in inclination in the northern and southern directions when launching from the territory of the USSR, and the flight task had to be completed within 2-3 orbits (the third orbit was landing). The maneuverability capabilities of the OS using an onboard rocket propulsion system operating on high-energy fuel components - fluorine F2 + amidol (50% N2H4 + 50% BH3N2H4) were supposed to ensure a change in orbital inclination for a reconnaissance aircraft and interceptor by 170, for an attack aircraft with a missile on board (and reduced fuel supply) - 70...80. The interceptor was also capable of performing a combined maneuver - a simultaneous change in orbital inclination by 120 with an ascent to an altitude of up to 1000 km.

After completing the orbital flight and turning on the braking engines, the OS must enter the atmosphere with a large angle of attack; control during the descent stage involved changing the roll at a constant angle of attack. On the gliding descent trajectory in the atmosphere, the ability to perform an aerodynamic maneuver over a range of 4000...6000 km with a lateral deviation of plus/minus 1100...1500 km was specified.

The OS had to be launched into the landing area with a choice of the velocity vector along the axis of the runway, which was achieved by choosing a roll change program. The aircraft’s maneuverability made it possible to ensure landing at night and in difficult weather conditions at one of the territory’s alternate airfields Soviet Union from any of the 3 turns. The landing was made using a turbojet engine ("36-35" developed by OKB-36), on a class II unpaved airfield at a speed of no more than 250 km/h.

According to the preliminary project "Spirals" approved by G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky on June 29, 1966, the AKS with an estimated weight of 115 tons was a docked winged wide-body reusable horizontal take-off and landing vehicle - a 52-ton hypersonic booster aircraft (received the index "50- 50"), and a manned OS located on it (index "50") with a two-stage rocket accelerator - a launch unit.

Due to the lack of development of liquid fluorine as an oxidizer, in order to speed up work on AKS as a whole, an alternative development of a two-stage rocket accelerator using oxygen-hydrogen fuel and the phased development of fluorine fuel on OS was proposed as an intermediate step - first, the use of high-boiling fuel based on nitrogen tetroxide and asymmetrical dimethylhydrazine ( AT+UDMH), then fluorine-ammonia fuel (F2+NH3), and only after gaining experience it was planned to replace ammonia with amidol.

Thanks to the peculiarities of the incorporated design solutions and the selected aircraft launch scheme, it made it possible to implement fundamentally new properties for means of launching military loads into space:

Injection into orbit of a payload that weighs 9% or more of the take-off weight of the system;

Reducing the cost of putting one kilogram of payload into orbit by 3-3.5 times compared to missile systems on the same fuel components;

Launch of spacecraft in a wide range of directions and the ability to quickly retarget the launch with a change in the required parallax due to the aircraft range;

Independent relocation of the booster aircraft;

Minimizing the required number of airfields;
- rapid launch of a combat orbital aircraft to any point on the globe;

Effective maneuvering of an orbital aircraft not only in space, but also during the descent and landing stages;

Airplane landing at night and in adverse weather conditions at an airfield assigned or selected by the crew from any of three orbits.

COMPONENTS OF AX SPIRAL.

Hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR) "50-50".

The GSR was a tailless aircraft 38 m long with a delta wing of large variable sweep along the leading edge of the "double delta" type (sweep 800 in the nose surge area and the front part and 600 at the end of the wing) with a span of 16.5 m and an area of 240.0 m2 with vertical stabilizing surfaces - keels (area 18.5 m2) - at the ends of the wing.

The GSR was controlled using rudders on the keels, elevons and landing flaps. The booster aircraft was equipped with a 2-seat pressurized crew cabin with ejection seats.

Taking off from the acceleration trolley, for landing the GSR uses a three-legged landing gear with a nose strut, equipped with twin pneumatic tires measuring 850x250, and released into the flow in the direction "against the flight." The main rack is equipped with a 1300x350 two-wheel tandem wheel trolley to reduce the required volume in the landing gear bay when retracted. The track of the main landing gear is 5.75 m.

In the upper part of the GSR, the orbital plane itself and the rocket accelerator were attached in a special box, the nose and tail parts of which were covered with fairings.

At the GSR, liquefied hydrogen was used as fuel, the propulsion system was in the form of a block of four turbojet engines (TRD) developed by A.M. Lyulka with a take-off thrust of 17.5 tons each, having a common air intake and operating on a single supersonic external expansion nozzle. With an empty weight of 36 tons, the GSR could take on board 16 tons of liquid hydrogen (213 m3), for the placement of which 260 m3 of internal volume was allocated

The engine received the AL-51 index (at the same time, OKB-165 was developing the third generation AL-21F turbofan engine, and for the new engine the index was chosen “with a reserve”, starting with the round number “50”, especially since the same number appeared in topic index). The technical specifications for its creation were received by A.M. Lyulka OKB-165 (now the A.M. Lyulka Research and Development Center as part of the Saturn NPO).

Overcoming the thermal barrier for GSR was ensured by the appropriate selection of structural and heat-protective materials.

Accelerator plane.

During the work, the project was constantly refined. We can say that it was in a state of “permanent development”: some inconsistencies constantly emerged - and everything had to be “connected”. Realities intervened in the calculations - existing construction materials, technologies, plant capabilities, etc. In principle, at any stage of design, the engine was operational, but did not provide the characteristics that the designers wanted to get from it. “Reaching” continued for another five to six years, until the early 1970s, when work on the Spiral project was closed.

Two-stage rocket booster.

The launch unit is a disposable two-stage launch vehicle located in a “semi-recessed” position in a cradle “on the back” of the GSR. To speed up development, the preliminary project provided for the development of intermediate (hydrogen-oxygen fuel, H2+O2) and main (hydrogen-fluorine fuel, H2+F2) versions of the rocket accelerator.

When choosing fuel components, the designers proceeded from the condition of ensuring that the largest possible payload could be launched into orbit. Liquid hydrogen (H2) was considered as the only promising type of fuel for hypersonic aircraft and as one of the promising fuels for liquid-propellant rocket engines, despite its significant drawback - small specific gravity(0.075 g/cm3). Kerosene was not considered as a fuel for a rocket booster.

Oxygen and fluorine can be used as oxidizing agents for hydrogen. From the point of view of manufacturability and safety, oxygen is more preferable, but its use as an oxidizer for hydrogen fuel leads to significantly larger required tank volumes (101 m3 versus 72.12 m3), that is, to an increase in the midsection, and therefore in the drag of the booster aircraft , which reduces its maximum release speed to M=5.5 instead of M=6 with fluorine.

Accelerator.

The total length of the rocket booster (using hydrogen fluoride fuel) is 27.75 m, including 18.0 m of the first stage with a bottom stacker and 9.75 m of the second stage with a payload of an orbital aircraft. The version of the oxygen-hydrogen rocket booster turned out to be 96 cm longer and 50 cm thicker.

It was assumed that a hydrogen fluoride rocket engine with a thrust of 25 tons to equip both stages of the rocket accelerator would be developed at OKB-456 by V.P. Glushko on the basis of a spent liquid rocket engine with a thrust of 10 tons using fluoroammonia (F2+NH3) fuel

Orbital plane.

The orbital aircraft (OS) was an aircraft with a length of 8 m and a width of a flat fuselage of 4 m, made according to the “load-bearing body” scheme, having a strongly blunt triangular feather shape in plan.

The basis of the structure was a welded truss, onto which a power heat shield (HSE) was attached from below, made of plates of clad niobium alloy VN5AP coated with molybdenum disilicide, arranged according to the “fish scale” principle. The screen was suspended on ceramic bearings, which acted as thermal barriers, relieving temperature stresses due to the mobility of the thermal element relative to the housing while maintaining external form apparatus.

The upper surface was in a shaded area and heated up to no more than 500 C, so the top of the body was covered with skin panels made of cobalt-nickel alloy EP-99 and VNS steels.

The propulsion system included:

Orbital maneuvering rocket engine with a thrust of 1.5 tf (specific impulse 320 sec, fuel consumption 4.7 kg/sec) to perform a maneuver to change the orbital plane and issue a braking impulse for deorbiting; subsequently, it was planned to install a more powerful liquid-propellant rocket engine with a vacuum thrust of 5 tf with smooth thrust adjustment up to 1.5 tf to perform precise orbit corrections;

Two emergency braking liquid-propellant rocket engines with 16 kgf of vacuum thrust, powered by the fuel system of the main liquid-propellant rocket engine with a displacement system for supplying components using compressed helium;

Orientation liquid rocket engine unit, consisting of 6 coarse orientation engines with a thrust of 16 kgf and 10 fine orientation engines with a thrust of 1 kgf;

A turbojet engine with a bench thrust of 2 tf and a specific fuel consumption of 1.38 kg/kg per hour for subsonic flight and landing, fuel - kerosene. At the base of the fin there is an adjustable scoop-type air intake, which is opened only before starting the turbojet engine.

As an intermediate stage, the first samples of combat maneuverable operating systems envisaged the use of fluorine + ammonia fuel for liquid-propellant rocket engines.

For emergency rescue of the pilot at any stage of the flight, the design provided for a detachable headlight-shaped capsule cabin, which had its own powder engines for shooting away from the aircraft at all stages of its movement from takeoff to landing. The capsule was equipped with control engines for entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, a radio beacon, a battery and an emergency navigation unit. Landing was carried out using a parachute at a speed of 8 m/sec; energy absorption at this speed is due to residual deformation of the special honeycomb structure of the capsule corner.

The weight of the detachable equipped cabin with equipment, life support system, cabin rescue system and pilot is 930 kg, the weight of the cabin upon landing is 705 kg.

The navigation and automatic control system consisted of an autonomous astro-inertial navigation system, an on-board digital computer, an orientation rocket engine, an astro-corrector, an optical sighting device and a radio-vertical altimeter.

To control the trajectory of the aircraft during descent in addition to the main one automatic system control system, a backup simplified manual control system based on director signals is provided.

Rescue capsule.

Use cases.

Day photo reconnaissance.

The daytime photo reconnaissance aircraft was intended for detailed operational reconnaissance of small-sized ground and mobile sea predetermined targets. The photographic equipment placed on board provided a terrain resolution of 1.2 m when shooting from an orbit at an altitude of 130 plus/minus 5 km.

It was assumed that target search and visual observations of earth's surface the pilot will guide through an optical sight located in the cockpit with a smoothly varying magnification factor from 3x to 50x. The sight was equipped with a controlled reflective mirror to track a target from a distance of up to 300 km. The shooting was supposed to be done automatically after the pilot manually aligned the plane of the optical axis of the camera and the sight with the target; The size of the image on the ground is 20x20 km with a photographing distance along the route of up to 100 km. During one orbit, the pilot must manage to photograph 3-4 targets.

The photo reconnaissance aircraft is equipped with HF and VHF stations for transmitting information to the ground. If it is necessary to pass over the target again, the orbital plane rotation maneuver is automatically performed at the pilot’s command.

Radar reconnaissance.

A distinctive feature of the radar reconnaissance was the presence of an external deployable disposable antenna measuring 12x1.5 m. The estimated resolution should have been in the range of 20-30 m, which is sufficient for reconnaissance of aircraft carrier naval formations and large ground objects, with a swath width of ground objects - 25 km and up to 200 km during reconnaissance over the sea.

Orbital strike aircraft.

An orbital strike aircraft was intended to destroy moving sea targets. It was assumed that the launch of a space-to-Earth rocket with a nuclear warhead would be carried out from over the horizon in the presence of target designation from another reconnaissance OS or satellite. The refined coordinates of the target are determined by the locator, which is dropped before deorbiting, and by the aircraft's navigation aids. Guiding the missile via a radio channel in the initial stages of the flight made it possible to carry out corrections to increase the accuracy of pointing the missile at the target.

A missile with a launch mass of 1700 kg with a target designation accuracy of plus/minus 90 km ensured the destruction of a naval target (such as an aircraft carrier) moving at a speed of up to 32 knots with a probability of 0.9 (circular probable deviation of the warhead 250 m).

Interceptor of space targets "50-22".

The last developed version of the combat OS was the space target interceptor, developed in two modifications:

Inspector-interceptor with entry into target orbit, approaching it at a distance of 3-5 km and equalizing the speed between the interceptor and the target. After this, the pilot could inspect the target using a 50x optical sight (target resolution 1.5-2.5 cm) followed by photography.

If the pilot decided to destroy the target, he had at his disposal six homing missiles developed by SKB MOP weighing 25 kg each, ensuring the destruction of targets at a range of up to 30 km at relative speeds of up to 0.5 km/sec. The interceptor's fuel reserve is enough to intercept two targets located at altitudes of up to 1000 km at non-coplanarity angles of target orbits of up to 100;

A long-range interceptor equipped with homing missiles developed by SKB MOP with an optical coordinator for intercepting space targets on intersecting courses when the interceptor misses up to 40 km, compensated by the missile. The maximum missile launch range is 350 km. The weight of the rocket with the container is 170 kg. Searching and detecting a predetermined target, as well as pointing the missile at the target, is carried out manually by the pilot using an optical sight. The energy of this interceptor variant also ensures the interception of 2 targets located at altitudes of up to 1000 km.

Cosmonauts "Spiral".

In 1966, a group was formed at the Cosmonaut Training Center (CPC) to prepare for a flight on the “product-50” - this is how the orbital aircraft under the Spiral program was encrypted at the Cosmonaut Training Center. The group included five cosmonauts with good flight training, including cosmonaut N2 German Stepanovich Titov (1966-70), and Anatoly Petrovich Kuklin (1966-67), Vasily Grigorievich Lazarev (1966-67), who had not yet flown into space gg) and Anatoly Vasilyevich Filipchenko (1966-67).

The personnel composition of the 4th department changed over time - Leonid Denisovich Kizim (1969-73), Anatoly Nikolaevich Berezovoy (1972-74), Anatoly Ivanovich Dedkov (1972-74), Vladimir Alexandrovich Dzhanibekov (July-December 1972), Vladimir Sergeevich Kozelsky (August 1969 - October 1971), Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (1969-73), Yuri Vasilievich Malyshev (1969-73), Alexander Yakovlevich Petrushenko (1970-73 ) and Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (1972).

The emerging trend towards the closure of the Spiral program led in 1972 to the numerical reduction of the 4th department to three people and to a decrease in the intensity of training. In 1973, the group of cosmonauts on the “Spiral” theme began to be called VOS - Air Orbital Aircraft (sometimes another name is found - Military Orbital Aircraft).

On April 11, 1973, instructor-test cosmonaut Lev Vasilyevich Vorobyov was appointed deputy head of the 4th department of the 1st directorate. 1973 became last year 4th Department of the 1st Directorate of the TsPK - the further history of the VOS cosmonaut corps came to naught..

Closing the project.

From a technical point of view, the work went well. According to the schedule for the development of the Spiral project, it was envisaged that the creation of a subsonic OS would begin in 1967, a hypersonic analogue in 1968. The experimental device was to be launched into orbit for the first time in an unmanned version in 1970. Its first manned flight was planned for 1977. Work on GSR should have started in 1970 if its 4 multi-mode turbojet engines ran on kerosene. If a promising option is adopted, i.e. Since the fuel for engines is hydrogen, its construction was supposed to begin in 1972. In the 2nd half of the 70s. Flights of the fully equipped Spiral AKS could begin.

But, despite a rigorous feasibility study of the project, the country's leadership lost interest in the "Spiral" topic. The intervention of D.F. Ustinov, who was at that time the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, who oversaw the defense industry and advocated for missiles, had a negative impact on the progress of the program. And when A.A. Grechko, who became Minister of Defense, got acquainted in the early 70s. with “Spiral,” he expressed himself clearly and unambiguously: “We will not engage in fantasies.” Further implementation of the program was stopped.

But thanks to the large scientific and technical groundwork made and the importance of the topics raised, the implementation of the “Spiral” project was transformed into various research projects and related design developments. Gradually, the program was reoriented to flight testing of analogue devices without the prospect of creating a real system based on them (the BOR (Unmanned Orbital Rocket Plane) program).

This is the history of the project, which, even without being implemented, played a significant role in the country's space program.

The Spiral project, by and large, had two problems - technical and human.

The technical one concerns the hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR). In fact, at that time the problem of hypersound had not been solved. The GSR had powerful turbojet engines, which could not provide the design 5-6M. There are still no ramjet engines necessary for hypersound. Both we and the Americans are only on the way to creating a stable and reliable engine for hypersonic speeds. Not by chance further development The Spiral project followed the path of using subsonic heavy-duty carrier aircraft (the MAKS project).

The “human factor” is a sore spot not only for “Spiral”, but also for all space programs of the USSR in the 70s and 80s. Was large number bright, strong and ambitious designers who did not want to get along together. The conflict between Sergei Pavlovich Korolev and Valentin Petrovich Glushko, it came to the point of swearing at each other. Confrontation between the “enginemen” V.N. Chelomey and N.D. Kuznetsov, etc.

Each of them, for their programs and projects, enlisted the support of members of the CPSU Central Committee, knocked out finances and resources, issued corresponding resolutions, which were then adjusted in content and timing... The result was not a coordinated blow with a fist, but a poke in the sky with outstretched fingers.

He writes very well about this behind-the-scenes struggle Boris Evseevich Chertok in the series of books "Rockets and People". I recommend it to everyone who is really interested in the history of Russian cosmonautics without embellishment: http://flibusta.net/a/20774

General star wars: Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.

The “Spiral” project emerged from a competition between two design bureaus: P.O. Sukhoi Design Bureau and A.I. Mikoyan. Both design bureaus proposed similar aerospace systems, and Sukhoi, moreover, had a project for a heavy T-4 bomb carrier, which was supposed to be used as a carrier. But, in the end, the competition ended in Mikoyan's favor. This is how the Spiral project appeared.

Officially, the creation of the Spiral aerospace system (“topic 50”, later 105-205) was entrusted to the A.I. Mikoyan Design Bureau by Order of the Ministry of Aviation Administration dated July 30, 1965.

The number “50” symbolized the approaching 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, when the first subsonic tests were to take place. At the end of 1965, a decree was issued by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the development of the Air Orbital System (VOS) - the Experimental Complex of a manned orbital aircraft "Spiral".

In accordance with customer requirements, the designers were entrusted with the development of a videoconferencing system consisting of a hypersonic booster aircraft (HSA) and an orbital aircraft (OS) with a rocket accelerator. The start of the system is horizontal, with the introduction of an accelerating cart. After gaining speed and altitude with the help of the GSR engines, the OS was separated and the speed was increased with the help of the rocket engines of the two-stage accelerator. The combat manned single-seat reusable OS provided for the implementation in the versions of a spy, interceptor, or attack aircraft with an Orbit-Earth class missile and could be used for the inspection of cosmic objects. The range of reference orbits was 130-150 km altitude and 45-135o inclination; the flight task was to be carried out within 2-3 orbits. The maneuvering capabilities of the OS with the introduction of an on-board rocket propulsion system should provide a change in orbital inclination by 17o (an attack aircraft with a rocket on board - 7o) or a change in orbital inclination by 12o with an increase to an altitude of up to 1000 km. After completing an orbital flight, the OS must enter the atmosphere with a huge angle of attack (45-65o), control was provided by the tilt configuration at a constant angle of attack. On the line of motion of the gliding descent in the atmosphere, the ability to perform an aerodynamic maneuver at a range of 4000...6000 km with lateral deviation + 1100...1500 km was specified. The OS is brought to the landing area with the choice of a speed vector along the axis of the runway, which is achieved by selecting the tilt configuration program, and lands using a turbojet engine on a class II unpaved airfield with a landing speed of 250 km/h.

June 29, 1966, appointed main designer of the system G.E. Lozino - Lozinsky, signed the prepared preliminary draft. The main goal of the program was to create a manned operating system for performing applied tasks in space and ensuring constant transportation along the Earth-orbit-Earth route.

The system, with an estimated mass of 115 tons, consisted of a reusable hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR; “product 50-50″ / ed. 205), carrying an orbital stage consisting in fact of a reusable OS (“product 50″ / ed. 105) and a one-time 2-stage rocket booster.

For the detailed design of the orbital ship in 1967. in the town of rocket scientists, Dubna near Moscow, a branch of the A.I. Mikoyan Design Bureau was organized, which was headed by the Deputy Chief Designer - P.A. Shuster. Yu.D. Blokhin was appointed head of the branch's design bureau, who later became deputy. Ch. designer NPO "Molniya", and his deputy for production - D.A. Reshetnikov, then deputy. Gene. directors the most experienced plant NPO Molniya.

The named leaders began to form a creative team. In the branch, among others, the “Aerodynamics and Dynamics” team was organized, headed by the young MAI graduate V.P. Naidenov. He immediately began to establish connections with the Astronaut Training Center, which later resulted in close cooperation and played a huge role in developing control systems at the unique base of Star City.

In 1966 TsAGI joined the Spiral topic, where at that time V.M. Myasishchev was the director and extensive research was carried out on the aerodynamics of hypersonic speeds. Due to the great complexity of the Spiral program, the preliminary design provided for the phased development of the entire system.

In the same 1966, it was decided to build an analogue of the EPOS (Experimentally Piloted Orbital Aircraft), aka “Lapot” - ed. dropping it from a suitably converted Tu-95KM aircraft. The construction of an analogue began in 1968, and at the same time, at the aviation plant in Kuibyshev (Samara), the conversion of the Tu-95KM bomb carrier No. 2667 allocated to the Air Force into an experimental carrier aircraft began. Later, it was planned to include two other analogues of EPOS, now with liquid-propellant engines, in the tests - ed. 105-12 and 105-13, which could fly at supersonic and hypersonic speeds, respectively. To test the high-altitude launch of the RD36-35K turbojet engine, the L-18 flying laboratory was created on the basis of the K-10S rocket and the Tu-16K-10 carrier aircraft.

In 1970, all work on the construction of analogues of EPOS was transferred from the Zenit MMZ to the Dubna Machine-Building Plant. To work on the topic, a group of 150 people was assembled from the Dubna branch, and OKB-155-1 was separated into an independent company, now known as MKB Raduga. Here the assembly of item 105-11 No. 1-01 was completed, and in 1971 the production of the analogue 105-12 began, as well as 5 products of the experimental 0th batch (No. 001 - 005). The first of them was intended for static tests, the second - for testing rescue equipment, the third and 4th - for testing liquid rocket engines and gas-dynamic control, the 5th - for thermal strength tests. Product No. 002 was made in 1971, No. 005 - in 1973, No. 001 and 003 - in 1974. In addition, in the test program for the "Spiral" program since 1971, those made at LII on a scale of 1 took part :3 and 1:2 EPOS models, called “Bor” (Unmanned Orbital Rocket Plane). Assembly of the 105-11 analogue aircraft ended in 1974; next year it was relocated to the Air Force Research Institute in Akhtubinsk, where preparations for flight tests began.

It was necessary to remove the properties of the forces acting on the chassis in the ski version when the vehicle moves on the ground. An analogue of EPOS was delivered to the test site at the end of a large test airfield. The special crane was placed on exposed soil, weathered by hot dry winds almost to the strength of sandpaper. Under the weight of the structure, the skis were firmly pressed into it. Test pilot of the Mikoyan company Aviard Fastovets took a seat in the cockpit. The engine he launched rumbled furiously, but the device did not move. They poured water on the dirt strip - it didn't help. The pilot had to turn off the engine; the specialists were perplexed as to what else needed to be done.

No one saw how the head of the Zagrebelny training ground approached us,” recalls Colonel Vladislav Chernobrivtsev, who was the leading engineer of the 1st department of the Municipal Research Institute of the Air Force at the time of testing according to the EPOS program. “We considered Ivan Ivanovich to be a person quite far from purely flying business, but here he suddenly came out with advice:

- You can chop some watermelons in front of your bird - we have a lot of them here. That's when he'll probably run.

Everyone stared at him as if he were a wild dreamer, but after some reflection they agreed: come on, they say, what the hell is not joking! Zagrebelny ordered, and soon two trucks with striped balls to the edge of the sides slowly rolled forward from the nose of the analogue. The watermelons splashed loudly onto the ground, abundantly covering it with slippery pulp for about 70 meters. Having lifted the apparatus with a crane, we placed juicy halves of watermelons under all the skis. Fastovets got into the cockpit again. When the engine speed reached its maximum, the device eventually took off and, to everyone’s delight, slid along the strip faster and faster...

Thus, thanks to the resourcefulness of the airfield specialist, the test task was completed without significant delay. Flight testing of the subsonic analogue in the ski-wheel version began the following spring, in May 1976. First, the so-called approaches were carried out: after taking off from the ground, 105.11 immediately went in a straight line to land. This way it was tested by Igor Volk, Valery Menitsky (both later received the titles of Hero of the Russian Union and Honored Test Pilot of the USSR) and Hero of the Russian Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Alexander Fedotov, who at that time was the chief pilot of the Mikoyan company. Along with the Mikoyan team, military specialists - pilots and engineers from the Municipal Research Institute of the Air Force - also took part in the tests according to the EPOS program.

But the main burden in flight testing of the subsonic analogue fell on the shoulders of Hero of the Russian Union Aviard Fastovets. That same year, on October 11, he also managed to make a short flight from one unpaved runway of a spacious airfield to another. A year later, he began to prepare for air launches from under the fuselage of the Tu-95KM. He, like a big hen, pulled the chick under him so that the analog cabin, up to half the glass, went beyond the edge of the bomb bay, from which the doors were removed, and the engine air intake was completely hidden in the fuselage of the carrier. The suspension came out semi-external. The analogue pilot still had the opportunity to view in the frontal hemisphere. But to ensure the engine started, it was necessary to install an additional supercharging system. At first, in flights, without uncoupling, the ability to only release the analogue into the air flow on specially elongated holders and turn on its motor in this position was tested. All this did not cause any particular difficulties. Only once did the RD-36K seem to sneeze in displeasure at altitude and the revs froze. But as it descended (and it was needed to work specifically in this mode during the atmospheric phase of the flight after conditionally leaving orbit), it reached the given speed, as required.

Finally, on October 27, 1977, the most difficult step began. Encouraged by the friendly encouragement of the Tu-95KM crew, led by the deputy head of the bomber aviation flight test service, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Obelov (now a major general of aviation), Fastovets takes his place in his usual cockpit of the EPOS analogue. The holders pull the device towards the hatch. All four engines of the carrier began to rumble with propellers and turbines, and after a languid run it went into the gloomy autumn sky. At an altitude of 5 thousand meters, the coupling is placed on a combat course. It was designed by Colonel Yuri Lovkov, Honored Test Navigator of the USSR, so that in the event of an extreme situation after uncoupling, the pilot of the analogue would have the opportunity without huge evolutions, descending only in a straight line, to fit into the landing glide path and land at his own airfield. Using the aircraft intercom (SPU), to which the detachable device is connected, the navigator on board the Tu-95KM warns:

Readiness zero-four...

Hero of the Russian Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Aviard Gavrilovich Fastovets recalls:

So, there were 4 minutes left before uncoupling; by that time we were already flying in a fairly large gap in the cloudy layer. Sliding on holders into the flexible air flow under the fuselage of the carrier, my bird trembles slightly from the pressure of the jets. The balancing flap was deflected in order to immediately provide a diving moment after uncoupling, since we were afraid of suction in the jet between the fuselages of both vehicles. I start the engine and it runs strong.

— The engine is normal! — I report to the crew commander and continue the final check of the systems.

“Ready zero-one,” the SPU warns in Lovkov’s voice. But I have already finished everything, which I inform the carrier’s crew about. Then I hear: Reset! I know that on at the moment Lovkov pressed the button to open the locks of the holders.

Having separated, the device lowers its nose quite steeply, as if it was about to dive off a cliff. It looks like they went a little overboard with the angle of installation of the balancing flap, setting it up for the fastest escape from the wake from the carrier. I counter by deflecting the rudders - the bird obeys them perfectly. The autonomous flight lasted according to this program without huge deviations. This means that an air launch is completely suitable for testing an analogue.

True, in real conditions the EPOS itself would have launched for a different purpose - to enter the galactic orbit and in a slightly different way: from the back of a wide-body booster ship. By the way, a good model of this unique arrow-shaped machine, which has the most perfect aerodynamic shapes, can now be seen in the office general director NPO Molniya. And the importance of this type of start is difficult to overestimate. The fundamental possibility of launching an orbital aircraft at virtually any time was revealed. geographical point over the planet, the need for aggressively attached to certain places ground-based spaceports. And it’s okay that the EPOS being developed was small - it’s not difficult to build on a larger scale, the properties will be preserved. It is important to know: the closer the launch is to the equator, the more it is possible to use the force of the Earth’s rotation for acceleration and, under other equal criteria, to launch a load of greater mass into orbit.

Testing of the analogue 105.11 continued in 1978, replenishing the scientific and technical basis for the EPOS program. One flight after the air launch was performed by Hero of the Russian Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Petr Ostapenko. It launched 4 more times from under the fuselage of the Tu-95KM, the crew of which was now headed by the commander of the test aviation squadron, Colonel Anatoly Kucherenko. By the way, this experience later played a decisive role in the flying fate of Anatoly Petrovich.

But in general, the pace of implementation of the Spiral theme in the 70s began to slow down and could no longer satisfy any of the designers. Regarding the fate of EPOS, A.A. Grechko, having quickly become familiar with the analogue of 105.11 at the initial stage of work, categorically stated that “we will not indulge in fantasy.” But the marshal was at that time a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, the Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the implementation of a promising project depended on his decision in almost everything.

This event also had an impact. Our country is perhaps the only one where the cosmic department is divorced from the aviation industry. In addition, friction arose between them just at the time when the analogues of EPOS required cooperation of efforts. The fact is that since 1976, at the insistence of those responsible for astronautics (first D.F. Ustinov and the Minister of General Engineering S.A. Afanasyev), our designers were obliged to rush after the Yankees, who at that time had already begun implementing the program space shuttle flights. Although, from an impartial point of view, we did not need Buran, such an expensive orbital ship with such a large payload capacity, then (many experts believe that this is still the case). The political ambitions of our big managers played a bad role. They wanted revenge after a series of failures in the development of Russian astronautics. After all, both the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee and the ministers were already worried about their position due to the fact that the promises they had made to L. Brezhnev for many years had not been fulfilled.

The Ministry of General Engineering, having received the state order for the creation of the Energia-Buran system, began, figuratively speaking, to pull the blanket over itself. The “Spiral” theme, developed by G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky and his assistants, seemed to be superfluous. It was in vain that the head of the OKB of the space branch, Yuri Dmitrievich Blokhin, in a certificate prepared in February 1976 for the CPSU Central Committee in addition to statements to the ministry, tried to assure the top that the work carried out according to the EPOS program and the resulting costs amounted to about 75 million rubles, the scientific and technical groundwork impartially at that time was the only practical basis in the USSR for an alternative solution for creating a reusable space transport system in general, and for a hot design in particular. He even referred to the fact that in the USA the McDonnell-Douglas company had been conducting successful research for over 7 years, as well as flight experiments in order to test an apparatus with a load-bearing body, using small-sized analogues of the X-24 type; from which it would be possible in the future to move on to the creation of a multi-seat transport orbital aircraft according to the load-bearing body scheme. And it lost to the Rockwell company, which pushed through its own Shuttle project, not due to technical nuances - McDonnell-Douglas simply had weaker connections with the Pentagon. (Looking ahead: now the Americans, disappointed due to the disaster and accidents during the launches of the Space Shuttle, again began work on a program aimed at creating a promising aerospace aircraft with horizontal take-off and landing on ordinary runways. This device, according to according to their calculations, will provide the possibility of repeated flights into space with a 10-fold reduction in the cost of launching cargo into orbit compared to the Shuttle.)

Leading engineer of the Air Force Research Institute Vladislav Mikhailovich Chernobrivtsev also addressed a letter to the CPSU Central Committee, citing reasoned reasons for accelerating work on the EPOS program. But, as annoying as it may sound, nothing was taken into account by the top. D.F. Ustinov in April 1976, soon after the death of A.A. Grechko, took the post of Minister of Defense of the USSR, and his worldview about the prospects for the development of cosmic research work remained the same.

The end of flight tests on the analogue 105.11 coincided with its breakdown during landing in September 1978. At that time it was piloted by military test pilot Colonel Vasily Uryadov. Aviard Fastovets followed him, accompanying him on the flight on the MiG-23. We had to land against the setting sun; visibility was limited by haze. Shortly before that, the strip was widened and restrictive flags were installed accordingly. But we just didn’t have time to clear it completely and level out the potholes and bumps. The flight manager was an experienced one - Hero of the Russian Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR, Aviation Major General Vadim Petrov, and he was also let down by poor visibility. Having mistakenly mistook the MiG Fastovets, which was evading to the left, for an analogue, Vadim Ivanovich gave the command to Uryadov to turn to the right. He did it. Descending against the sun, I saw late that it was about to land to the right of the runway. The reaction of the most experienced tester allowed him to turn away at the last moment and enter the flag zone, but there was not enough height for more. The craft landed roughly on a bulge in the ground.

No, the analogue did not collapse - it was only a crack in the area of the load-bearing frame. Naturally, the pilots still felt deep annoyance. But engineers and designers... They say every cloud has a silver lining. Indeed. For the experts, this case presented an unexpected opportunity to actually check whether their calculations of design accuracy corresponded to the tested loads. The test results turned out to be what we needed. The EPOS analogue passed the most difficult exam with dignity. He was soon returned. Only he no longer had to fly. But the fate of the “Spiral” theme was not decided by this incident. As in the fate of a number of other projects, this reflected the painful difficulties of our society - excessive politicization of science, voluntarism, lack of collegiality in decision-making, and the unacceptably huge importance of personal relationships between management industries. Perhaps the most important thing is the inability to predict the prospects for the development of technology, a reckless focus on other people's experience to the detriment of common sense.

True, the experience gained by those who participated in the development and testing of the EPOS program was not in vain. Although the space branch of the Mikoyan company soon had to be closed, 48 professionals from Dubna were transferred to the NPO Molniya, intended to carry out work on Buran. Thus, the former deputy head of the branch for production, Dmitry Alekseevich Reshetnikov, who made a huge number of fundamental proposals for improvement technological processes, then became the director of an experimental plant as part of NPO Molniya, and the former manager of the aerodynamics team, Vyacheslav Petrovich Naydenov, became a leading designer, heading mathematical and semi-natural modeling using the Buran program.

Currently, an analogue of the EPOS is presented in the Air Force Museum in Monino, Moscow Region.

Lupina Maxim Vladimirovich.

Early 60s. The Cold War is in full swing. In the United States, work is underway on the Dyna Soar program, the X20 hypersonic orbital rocket plane. As a response to this program, work on the development of our own rocket planes is being carried out in our country by many institutes and design bureaus, both by order of the government, in the form of R&D, and on their own initiative. But the development of the Spiral aerospace system was the first official large-scale topic supported by the country's leadership after a series of events that became the background to the project.

In accordance with customer requirements, the designers began developing a reusable two-stage complex consisting of a hypersonic booster aircraft (HSA) and a military orbital aircraft (OS) with a rocket booster. The launch of the system was provided horizontally, using an accelerating cart, the takeoff occurred at a speed of 380-400 km/h. After reaching the required speed and altitude with the help of GSR engines, the OS was separated and further acceleration took place with the help of rocket engines of a two-stage accelerator running on hydrogen fluoride fuel.

The OS had to be launched into the landing area with a choice of the velocity vector along the axis of the runway, which was achieved by choosing a roll change program. The maneuverability of the aircraft made it possible to ensure landing at night and in difficult weather conditions at one of the reserve airfields on the territory of the Soviet Union from any of the 3 orbits. The landing was made using a turbojet engine ("36-35" developed by OKB-36), on a class II unpaved airfield at a speed of no more than 250 km/h.

Injection into orbit of a payload that weighs 9% or more of the take-off weight of the system;

Reducing the cost of launching one kilogram of payload into orbit by 3-3.5 times compared to rocket systems using the same fuel components;

Launch of spacecraft in a wide range of directions and the ability to quickly retarget the launch with a change in the required parallax due to the aircraft range;

Independent relocation of the booster aircraft;

Minimizing the required number of airfields;
- rapid launch of a combat orbital aircraft to any point on the globe;

Effective maneuvering of an orbital aircraft not only in space, but also during the descent and landing stages;

Airplane landing at night and in adverse weather conditions at an airfield assigned or selected by the crew from any of three orbits.

COMPONENTS OF AX SPIRAL.

Hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR) "50-50".

The GSR was a tailless aircraft 38 m long with a delta wing of large variable sweep along the leading edge of the "double delta" type (sweep 800 in the nose surge area and the front part and 600 at the end of the wing) with a span of 16.5 m and an area of 240.0 m2 with vertical stabilizing surfaces - keels (area 18.5 m2) - at the ends of the wing.

The GSR was controlled using rudders on the keels, elevons and landing flaps. The booster aircraft was equipped with a 2-seat pressurized crew cabin with ejection seats.

In the upper part of the GSR, the orbital plane itself and the rocket accelerator were attached in a special box, the nose and tail parts of which were covered with fairings.

Overcoming the thermal barrier for GSR was ensured by the appropriate selection of structural and heat-protective materials.

Accelerator plane.

Two-stage rocket booster.

When choosing fuel components, the designers proceeded from the condition of ensuring that the largest possible payload could be launched into orbit. Liquid hydrogen (H2) was considered as the only promising type of fuel for hypersonic aircraft and as one of the promising fuels for liquid-propellant rocket engines, despite its significant drawback - low specific gravity (0.075 g/cm3). Kerosene was not considered as a fuel for a rocket booster.

Accelerator.

Orbital plane.

The orbital aircraft (OS) was aircraft 8 m long and a flat fuselage width of 4 m, made according to the “load-bearing body” scheme, having a strongly blunted feathered triangular shape in plan.

The basis of the structure was a welded truss, onto which a power heat shield (HSE) was attached from below, made of plates of clad niobium alloy VN5AP coated with molybdenum disilicide, arranged according to the “fish scale” principle. The screen was suspended on ceramic bearings, which acted as thermal barriers, relieving thermal stress due to the mobility of the TSE relative to the body while maintaining the external shape of the device.

The upper surface was in a shaded area and heated up to no more than 500 C, so the top of the body was covered with skin panels made of cobalt-nickel alloy EP-99 and VNS steels.

The propulsion system included:

Orientation liquid rocket engine unit, consisting of 6 coarse orientation engines with a thrust of 16 kgf and 10 fine orientation engines with a thrust of 1 kgf;

As an intermediate stage, the first samples of combat maneuverable operating systems envisaged the use of fluorine + ammonia fuel for liquid-propellant rocket engines.

The weight of the detachable equipped cabin with equipment, life support system, cabin rescue system and pilot is 930 kg, the weight of the cabin upon landing is 705 kg.

To control the aircraft's trajectory during descent, in addition to the main automatic control system, a backup simplified manual control system based on director signals is provided.

Rescue capsule

Use cases.

Day photo reconnaissance.

It was assumed that the pilot would search for a target and visually observe the earth's surface through an optical sight located in the cockpit with a smoothly varying magnification factor from 3x to 50x. The sight was equipped with a controlled reflective mirror to track a target from a distance of up to 300 km. The shooting was supposed to be done automatically after the pilot manually aligned the plane of the optical axis of the camera and the sight with the target; The size of the image on the ground is 20x20 km with a photographing distance along the route of up to 100 km. During one orbit, the pilot must manage to photograph 3-4 targets.

Radar reconnaissance.

Orbital strike aircraft.

Interceptor of space targets "50-22".

The last developed version of the combat OS was the space target interceptor, developed in two modifications:

Cosmonauts "Spiral".

On April 11, 1973, instructor-test cosmonaut Lev Vasilyevich Vorobyov was appointed deputy head of the 4th department of the 1st directorate. 1973 was the last year of the 4th Department of the 1st Directorate of the Cosmonaut Center - the further corps of VOS cosmonauts came to naught..

Closing the project.

This is the history of the project, which, even without being implemented, played a significant role in the country's space program.

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