Soviet space travel

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A Soyuz rocket takes off from Baikonur (1975)
Economic Success Show, Moscow - Hall of Cosmos (1968)

The Soviet space began with the launch of the first Earth satellite Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and continued in the following years, other standards, of which Yuri Gagarin was in April 1961 as the first man in space and Earth orbit only a highlight. In the field of manned space travel, the focus has been on the orbital space stations Salyut and later the Mir since the 1970s . Furthermore, there have been many successes in unmanned exploration of the moon and Venus since the 1960s . The unmanned missions to the planet Marswere mostly failures. Many details of the programs only became known since the late 1980s and after the collapse of the Soviet Union . After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the programs were essentially taken over and continued by Russia . Some missile projects remained in Ukraine .

Basics

The theoretical foundations of space flight were laid by the Russian scientist Konstantin Ziolkowski at the beginning of the 20th century . From around the beginning of the First World War , Tsarist Russia, then the USSR, developed smaller missiles. The Katyusha rocket launcher (also known as the Stalin organ ) , which was used by the military from 1938, became particularly well known. Initial projects to create liquid- propelled rockets , such as the RDD-604 , were interrupted by the German attack on the Soviet Union .

An important impetus for the Soviet, as well as for the US, missile program was the German A4 ('V2') missile , which came to the Soviet Union as spoils of war after 1945, accompanied by a number of engineers. This first large rocket was analyzed, rebuilt and gradually improved in precision, payload and range. Unlike in the USA, where inter alia The former head of the German rocket program Wernher von Braun directed further development up to the moon landing in 1969, the deported German technicians around Helmut Gröttrup were allowed to return to Germany in 1952 and 1953.

Sergei P. Korolev on a Soviet postage stamp (1969)

The leading head of Soviet missile development was Sergei Korolev , whose paramount importance in the East was officially recognized only after his death on January 14, 1966. The Soviet space program, like the American one, was tied closely to military interests from the start and was subject to the strictest secrecy. Korolev, like von Braun, was fascinated by the possibilities of space travel, but was initially only able to campaign behind the scenes for the use of large rockets for peaceful purposes.

Soviet space travel was organized differently than that of the USA: American missile development took place separately in the three branches of the army, navy and air force; For example, von Braun's Redstone development was in competition with a marine program. Later, with NASA, a separate authority for civil space travel was established, while the military rocket development continued in the three branches of the armed forces.

In the USSR, however, a separate armed force was created: the cosmic armed forces (WKS - Wojenno-Kosmitscheskije Sily), which was responsible for both military and civil development. It was not until the Russian Federation was founded in 1992 that it established its own civil space agency, Roskosmos .

The OKB-1 (design bureau) by Sergei Korolyov was dedicated to the cryogenic liquid fuel rockets, with which Sergei Korolev had experimented in the late 1930s.

Pre-war efforts

Konstantin Ziolkowski

Space exploration theory had a solid foundation in the pre-World War I Russian Empire with the writings of Konstantin Ziolkowski (1857-1935), who published seminal work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and introduced the concept of the multi-stage rocket in 1929. In 1924, space-enthusiastic students founded the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Connections . Early experiments were carried out by in the 1920s and 1930s and by members of the reactive propulsion research group GIRD , founded in 1931, which included pioneers such as Sergei Korolev , who dreamed of a trip to Mars, and the German-Russian engineer Friedrich Zander . On August 18, 1933, the GIRD launched the first Soviet liquid fuel rocket GIRD-09 and on November 25, 1933 the first hybrid rocket GIRD-X . From 1940 to 1941 there was a further advance in the field of reactive propulsion, namely the development and series production of the Katjuscha multiple rocket launcher.

The German contribution to development

In the 1930s, Soviet missile technology was comparable to that of Germany. After that, however, their progress was significantly hampered by Stalin's Great Purge . Many leading engineers were killed, the rocket specialist Sergei Koroljow and the engine specialist Valentin Gluschko were imprisoned in the Gulag from 1938 to 1945 . Although the Katyusha was very effective on the Eastern Front during World War II, the well-advanced state of the German missile program inspired Russian engineers who inspected its remains in the Peenemünde Army Research Center and Mittelwerk GmbH after the end of the war in Europe. The Americans had secretly brought most of the leading German scientists and more than 100 V2 rockets to the United States in Operation Paperclip , and had largely withdrawn the documents on the A4 from Soviet access.

But the Soviet missile program also benefited greatly from German developments and the input of German scientists. As early as August 1944, when the Soviet Union conquered the test site in Dębice, Poland, rubble of dismantled A4 rockets and the remains of dismantled launching systems fell into their hands and made it possible to collect basic technical data of the German rocket program. When Peenemünde was occupied in early May 1945, the Red Army took possession of a complete V2. Under the military leadership of Dmitri Ustinov Sergei Korolyov, Valentin Glushko and control specialists tried Nikolai Piljugin and Boris Chertok from July 1945, the documents and means of production of the A4 under the direction of German control expert Helmut Gröttrup , who from 1939 to 1945 at Peenemunde under Wernher von Braun worked had to reconstruct and other German scientists. To this end, they founded the Rabe Institute for Rocket Construction and Development in Bleicherode in July 1945 and transferred it to the Nordhausen Institute (also known as Central Works) in February 1946 with more than 5000 German employees under the direction of Helmut Gröttrup as General Director. Top-class developers reconstructed the components of the A4, including Werner Albring for the aerodynamics and Kurt Magnus for the gyro control . Erich Apel , who was already working in Peenemünde, was in charge of engine construction.

With this massive use of funds, which also included the resumption of production of components and the assembly and testing of A4 missiles in the Soviet occupation zone , the military leadership of the Soviet Union pursued (and achieved) the complete knowledge and technology transfer of German missile development as strategic goal. On May 13, 1946, the Soviet Council of Ministers therefore decided to transfer the German specialists to the USSR by the end of 1946 and initiated the appropriate preparations.

In November 1946, Helmut Gröttrup was deported to the island of Gorodomlja together with 160 other selected scientists and specialists from the Nordhausen Institute as part of the Ossawakim campaign in order to open Branch 1 of the research and development facility for space rockets NII-88 (Russian НИИ-88, научно-исследовательский институт ) to build. At the same time, the production facilities in the Soviet occupation zone were dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union. On the basis of the work and the further support of the German collective, Sergei Koroljow was able to set up the Soviet production of a modified V2 with the designation R-1 and successfully start it for the first time on October 13, 1948 on the Kapustin Jar test site . By replicating the German equipment, the Soviet armaments industry familiarized itself with the peculiarities of rocket manufacturing, saving its own research and development effort and quickly training a large number of engineers and technicians.

Vostok launch vehicle based on the R-7 for the launch of Sputnik-1 with a conical shape and bundling of many engines (1957)

The weight of the Soviet nuclear warheads, however, required a more powerful drive. For this purpose, the German collective conceived a number of constructive improvements in the period 1947 to 1949 with the drafts of the G-1, G-2 and G-4:

  • the bundling of rocket engines together with the possibility of compensating for an engine failure by switching off the symmetrically opposite engine (in the later R-7 ICBM and the Sputnik launcher , 4x4 engines were combined for the first stage and 4 engines for the second stage)
  • the vector control of the engines by pivoting instead of the complex thrusters made of graphite
  • the conical shape of the rocket body for stable aerodynamics (without complex wind tunnel tests to optimize over the entire speed range and the associated tank load)
  • the use of the tanks as a load-bearing structure to reduce weight
  • A more precise target control of the rocket through improved gyro systems including associated simulation systems
  • the use of cooled combustion gases from the rocket engine to drive the turbo pumps (instead of separate gas generators)

Korolev used parts of these proposals for the Soviet advancements R2 , R-3, R-5 and R-14 . For political reasons, however, the contributions of the German collective to Soviet missile development were for a long time considered insignificant by the public. They prepared the steps to develop the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (MBR) R-7 , which was successfully tested in August 1957 and in November 1957 put the world's first satellite into orbit. An essential success factor for Soviet space travel was the uncompromising use of economic and scientific forces for rocket development, driven by Sergei Koroljow as a visionary and assertive chief engineer and Dmitri Ustinow, who initially made a name for himself as Minister for Procurement (Armaments) vis-à-vis Stalin and from 1952 as a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU was able to directly influence the distribution of funds. In contrast to the usual weaknesses of the communist planned economy, the development of rockets as a military-industrial complex was coordinated extremely efficiently and pursued with great secrecy.

development

The R-7

R-7 in Moscow

As an outstanding engineering achievement Korolev's because particularly simple and reliable, initially regarded as intercontinental ballistic missile designed R-7 . With only small variations, it became the most widely used launcher worldwide and is still used today as a carrier for the Soyuz spaceships and Progress transporters , among other things for transporting crews to the ISS and supplying them.

Sputnik 1 , the first earth satellite , was launched on October 4, 1957 with an R-7 - a sensation that aroused enthusiasm for space travel in the West too. The start took place as part of the International Geophysical Year 1957 and led to the so-called Sputnik shock in western countries . Up to this point in time, the western secret services had underestimated the progress made in Soviet missile developments. Helmut Gröttrup , who had been intercepted and questioned by the British secret service in December 1953 after his return from the Soviet Union as part of the espionage program Operation Dragon Return , had warned of the importance of Sergei Korolev, who was then unknown in the West, and warned of the ongoing development of ICBMs. In an analysis from March 1957, the CIA trusted the Soviet Union to launch a satellite for scientific purposes in 1957, but only from 1963 onwards with powerful reconnaissance satellites.

A milestone in Soviet space travel was the flight of Yuri Gagarin , the first man in space. After the successful circumnavigation of the earth on April 12, 1961, it was celebrated with great enthusiasm in Moscow and around the world. In 1980 the huge, futuristic Gagarin monument was erected on Lenin Prospect in Moscow .

For the Soviet leadership and Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev , these successes were rather unexpected. But there was no hesitation in using them for propaganda purposes to demonstrate the superiority of communism .

Race to the moon

Representation and size comparison of the Soviet and American lunar spaceships

The Soviet Union also entered the race to the moon and was able to record successes with the Lunik missions in 1959 and continued with the Luna program from 1963 . But for a manned mission you needed a new, large launcher. After Korolev's death in 1966, however, it was not possible to successfully concentrate the available resources and capabilities on this task: After several false starts, work on the huge N1 rocket was stopped in 1974 and the manned Soviet lunar program ended.

In an ARD - BBC co-production from 2005, the "Race to the Moon" was staged as a TV docudrama. The mixture of original material, computer graphics and elaborate game scenes also incorporated details that had only recently become known.

Planetary probes

With Lunokhod notable were still robotic missions connected to the moon. The various missions to Mars , however, were mostly unsuccessful: Mars 1 of the Mars probes of the same name took off in 1962 and reached the planet, but could not deliver any data due to technical problems. Mars 2 and 3, which started in 1969, had a similar fate. Probes 4 to 7, dispatched in 1973, were plagued by electronic problems, only Mars 5 provided a series of photos. The two Fobos probes for exploring the Martian moon Phobos in 1988 also failed to achieve their goals. Finally, in 1996, the Russian Mars 96 probe had to be written off after a false start.

The probes to the hot neighboring planet Venus , which is close to the sun, are different : between 1965 and 1984 a total of fifteen Venera missions were started, with mostly successful results, with numerous data, radar maps and high-resolution photos being transmitted. Between 1984 and 1986, the Vega 1 and 2 missions followed, with the participation of international scientists . In each case, landing probes were set down on Venus, followed by a rendezvous with Comet Halley. Even if only little scientifically new material emerged, the Vega missions demonstrated that they were technologically up to date.

Buran and Energija

Space shuttle Buran, 1997 at an exhibition

With the development of the space shuttle Buran and the associated launch vehicle Energija , the Soviet Union started a new, technologically ambitious space project from 1976 onwards. At first glance, similar to the US space shuttle , the system was designed to be more flexible: the Energija was designed as a stand-alone launch vehicle with 96 tons, later as a volcano with 175 tons of payload (for a low earth orbit ) and was designed for reuse itself. The relatively small engines of the Buran were only used at take-off after reaching space to raise the perigee , which would otherwise be too low after the Energija burned out , and were therefore much lighter. This design made it possible for the Buran to carry a higher payload of 30 tons, compared to 25 tons for the shuttle of about the same size.

After a series of successful, unmanned test flights, the program was officially discontinued in 1993 after the budget collapsed due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Energija, which could be used independently, was then not commercially viable, precisely because its high capacity was not requested by the market.

Me

Space station Mir in earth orbit

Most recently, Soviet space travel came into the field of vision of the world with the Mir space station . Between the start on February 19, 1986 and the targeted crash on March 23, 2001, numerous scientific experiments were carried out and records were broken.

Transition to the Russian Federation

Most of the Soviet human and material resources went to the Russian space agency Roskosmos (initially RKA), which continued many of the previous projects and started new ones. In part, this was done in cooperation with Ukraine , Kazakhstan and other CIS countries that were formerly part of the USSR. Ukraine continued some missile projects.

Major parts of the Soviet space history are Museum of Cosmonautics documented in Moscow, the nearby metro station VDNKh and the main entrance of the Vdnkh is.

Milestones and first achievements

American plaque for Yuri Gagarin
Block edition of the Soviet Post (1965); left: Belyayev, right: Leonow

The many first achievements contrast with failed major projects, such as the long-kept secret N1 moon rocket , the Mars space probes or the Buran space shuttle, which was abandoned after an unmanned mission . Many details about failures came to light only after perestroika .

See also

literature

  • Alfred Gugerell: From Gagarin to the Mir space station . Gugerell, Traisen (Lower Austria) 1998, ISBN 3-9500500-0-0 .
  • Dennis Newkirk: Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight . Gulf Publ., Houston 1990, ISBN 0-87201-848-2 .
  • Peter Stache: Soviet missiles . Elbe-Dnjepr-Verlag, Klitzschen (Saxony) 2001, ISBN 3-933395-27-5 .
  • Matthias Schwartz: The invention of the cosmos: on Soviet science fiction and popular science journalism from the Sputnik flight to the end of the thaw . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-631-51225-2 .
  • Philipp Meuser (ed.): Architecture for Russian space travel. From constructivism to cosmonautics . DOM Publishers, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86922-219-6 .
  • Vladimir I. Levantovskij, Vladimir A. Leškovcev, Il'ja E. Rachlin: Sovetskaja raketa issleduet kosmos. (The Soviet rocket explores the cosmos). Publishing house Gos. Izd. Fiz.-Mat. lit., in Cyrillic script, Moscow 1959.
  • Stefan Scholl: Anarchy in space. In: Brand one. No. 10, 2008, ISSN  1438-9339 (PDF)

Web links

Commons : Soviet Space Program  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kurt Magnus: Rocket Slaves. German researchers behind red barbed wire . Elbe-Dnjepr-Verlag, Mockrehna 1999, ISBN 978-3-933395-67-2 .
  2. ↑ a b Werner Albring: Gorodomlia. German rocket researchers in Russia . Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 978-3-630-86773-1 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Matthias Uhl : Stalins V-2. The technology transfer of German radio controlled weapons technology to the USSR and the development of the Soviet missile industry from 1945 to 1959 . Dissertation with reproduction of many original documents. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2001, ISBN 978-3-7637-6214-9 (304 pages).
  4. ↑ G-1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on May 14, 2019. - G-1 as a draft for R-2
  5. ^ G-2 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica, accessed on May 14, 2019. - G-2 as a draft for R-12
  6. ↑ a b G-4 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica, accessed on May 14, 2019 (English). - G-4 as a draft for R-3, R-10 and R-14
  7. ^ A b Jürgen Michels, Olaf Przybilski: Peenemünde and his heirs in East and West: Development and way of German secret weapons . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1997, ISBN 978-3-7637-5960-6 (333 pages).
  8. ^ Anatoly Zak: German contribution in the Soviet rocketry: Myth and Reality. August 12, 2012, accessed on May 11, 2019 (English): "striking resemblance between a cone-like aerodynamic shape proposed by the Gröttrup team for several of its rockets and Korolev's own designs, which appeared in metal years later. Korolev's largest rockets - the R-7 and the ill-fated N1 moon rocket, both featured exotic conical shape "
  9. ↑ Boris E. Tschertok: Rockets and people . German missiles in Soviet hands. tape 1 . Elbe-Dnjepr-Verlag, Mockrehna 1998, ISBN 978-3-933395-00-9 (492 pages).
  10. ↑ Paul Maddrell: Gateway into the Soviet Union: The Occupation of Germany and the Spying of the USSR by the British Intelligence Service. (PDF; 1.92 MB) In: Vierteljahrshefte, Volume 51, Issue 2. Institute for Contemporary History, 2003, pp. 35–36 , accessed on June 17, 2019 : “Based on the messages, the Gröttrup and other“ Dragon Returns ” did, the British and Americans came to the conclusion in September 1954 that there was indeed a separate Soviet program for guided missiles. "
  11. ^ Paul Maddrell: Spying on Science: Western Intelligence in Divided Germany 1945-1961 . Ed .: Oxford University Press. 2006, ISBN 978-0-19-926750-7 (English, 344 pages, extensive insight into the results of the British reconnaissance and spy management during the Cold War, in particular the questioning of returned scientists and specialists as part of Operation Dragon Return ).
  12. ^ Soviet Capabilities and Probable Programs in the Guided Missile Field. (PDF; 4.52 MB) National Intelligence Estimate Number 11–5–57. In: CIA. March 12, 1957, accessed on August 24, 2020 (English, released for publication on August 29, 2013): “The USSR will probably make a major effort to be the first country to orbit an earth satellite. We believe that the USSR has the capability, in 1957, of orbiting a satellite vehicle which could acquire scientific information and data of limited military value. A satellite vehicle possessing substantial reconnaissance capability of military value could probably be orbited in the period 1963–1965. "
  13. ↑ BBC Germany: Race to the Moon. ( Memento of November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive )