Good afternoon, my dear reader. Your venerable servant, like millions of boys born in the Soviet Union, dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I did not become one, due to health and, strange as it may sound, growth. But the distant and unknown space attracts me to this day.
In this article, I want to tell you about such interesting and truly cosmic things as launch vehicles and the payload that they delivered into outer space.
Dense space exploration began in the middle of the third five-year plan, after the end of World War II. Active developments were carried out in many countries, but the main leaders were naturally the USSR and the USA. The championship in the successful launch and launch of a launch vehicle from PS-1 (the simplest satellite) into low Earth orbit belonged to the USSR. Before the first successful launch, there were already six generations of rockets, and only the seventh generation (R-7) was able to develop the first space velocity of 8 km / s in order to overcome Earth's gravity and enter Earth orbit. Space rockets originated from long-range ballistic missiles, by boosting the engine. First, I'll explain something to you. A rocket and a spaceship are two different things.
The rocket itself is just a means of delivering a spacecraft into space. These are the first 30 meters in the figure. And the spaceship is already attached to the rocket at the very top. However, there may not be a spaceship there, anything can be located there, from a satellite to a nuclear warhead. Which served as a great incentive and fear for the powers. The first successful launch and launch of a satellite into orbit meant a lot for the country. But above all else, the military advantage.
The launch vehicles themselves, until the first successful launch, have only an alphanumeric designation. And only after fixing the successful output of the payload to a given height, they get a name.
The 8K71 (R-7) intercontinental ballistic missile, as well as the well-known ball with four antennas, which she launched into space, also became an erudite’s piggy bank: “Sputnik” also became. It happened on October 4, 1957.
Here is the very first artificial satellite PS-1 undergoing a final check of all systems.
PS-1 in space. (the picture is not the original shooting)
Five months later, another launch vehicle (8A91) Sputnik 3 was launched. Such a short period in development is due to the fact that the first launch vehicles could lift a payload of several kilograms into space, and launch from PS-1 on board , was only the first goal against the United States. When the Americans accepted the fact that the USSR had overtaken them in the race for first place in spacewalks, they began to finish their rockets with a vengeance. The USSR needed to get ahead of the United States again and create a rocket that could launch a payload of a ton into space. And this is, after all, a real threat. Who knows how to stuff such a rocket and send it to Washington? And Sputnik-3 was just the first rocket, with a payload of 1300 kg.
Launch vehicle "Sputnik". On the left are three satellites that he put into orbit around the earth.
In the US, there was nuclear hysteria without it. In kindergartens, schools, factories and factories, endless exercises began in case of a nuclear strike. This was the first time that the Americans had nothing to oppose the USSR. Intercontinental ballistic missiles can reach the USSR in 11 minutes. A nuclear charge can fly from space much faster. Of course, all this is too complicated to really think so. But fear has big eyes.
By the way, here's something else to add to the piggy bank of an erudite: How long do you think a rocket flies into space? One hour, two? Maybe half an hour?
To reach an altitude of 118 km, the rocket takes approximately 500 seconds, which is less than 10 minutes. An altitude of 118 km (100 km) is the so-called Karman line, where aeronautics becomes completely impossible. It is generally accepted that a flight is considered space if the Karman line has been overcome.
The rocket is really American, but this picture very well reflects the atmosphere of the earth and the transition points.
The third rocket was the Luna. The USSR, seeing the futile attempts of the Americans, with their capitalist system, where the rocket is built not by the state, but by private companies that are more interested in profit than in the space race, began to think about flying to the moon. And already on December 2, 1959, the launch vehicle (8K71), by equipping the third stage (block "E"), successfully set off towards our cause of the ebb and flow. They could have done earlier, but due to the developing self-oscillations, the launch vehicles were destroyed in flight at 102-104 seconds. And only after the installation of hydraulic damper blocks in the fuel systems, the rocket successfully reached ... a heliocentric orbit and became the first artificial satellite of the sun. And all because of the failure to take into account the propagation time of the AMS radio command (automatic interplanetary station).
The next launch vehicle was Vostok 8K72. He then flew in September 1959 to the moon and successfully threw the Luna-2 AMS there, and a couple of pentagons with symbols of the USSR.
Launch vehicle "Vostok" standing on a pedestal at VDNKh in Moscow.
Two metal pentagons with the symbols of the USSR, sent along with AMS-2 to the moon.
(After this luck, the Americans began to build a pavilion where they decided to shoot a film about landing on the moon. Joke.) On October 4, the same year, a similar rocket was launched from the AMS Luna-3, which for the first time in the history of mankind, was able to photograph the reverse side Moon. Making ordinary Americans cry, huddled in a corner. Since, unfortunately, the moon on the other side is absolutely the same and there are no lunar parks and lunar cities on it.
Another side of the moon. 1959
Korolev, on the other hand, was planning to launch a man into space at full speed, and therefore, in complete secrecy, a life support system for a man in space was being developed. Spacecraft of the Sputnik series, launched on May 15, 1960. It was the first prototype of the Vostok satellite, which was used for the first human space flight.
A copy of the spacecraft "Sputnik"
The Sputnik 2 spacecraft was not intended to return to earth. But nevertheless, a decision was made to send a living being into orbit. It was a beautiful mongrel named Laika. She was found in one of the dog shelters. They were selected according to the principle - white, small, not thoroughbred, as it should not be picky about food. 10 dogs were selected, of which only three were selected and tested. But one was waiting for offspring, and the other had congenital curvature of the paws and was left as technological. Scientists have developed a feeding system, twice a day, a system of sewage and made a small operation to implant sensors. One was placed at the ribs, and the other at the carotid artery, to monitor breathing and pulse. Laika was launched into space on November 3, 1957. Having made incorrect calculations in thermoregulation, the temperature in the ship rose to 40 ° C and within 5 hours the dog died of overheating, although the flight was calculated for 7 days (the oxygen supply of the ship). Laika was doomed from the start. Many workers who participated in the experiment were morally depressed for a very long time. The Western press reacted very negatively to this flight and TASS transmitted information about the dog's well-being for another seven days, although the dog was already dead.
Laika. She was the first living creature to travel into space, but without a chance to return.
The Sputnik-4 spacecraft was created to study the operation of the life support system and various situations associated with human flight into space: a doll with a height of 164 cm and a weight of 72 kg was sent on it. After four days of flight, the satellite deviated from the planned course and at the beginning of deceleration, instead of entering the atmosphere, it was thrown into a higher orbit, after which it was no longer able to return to the atmosphere in the planned mode. The wreckage of the satellite was found in the middle of the main street in the town of Manitewak in the US state of Wisconsin, which seemed to hint.
The remains of "Sputnik-4" in the middle of the main street in the town of Manitewak in the US state of Wisconsin.
Sputnik-4
1. Photographic equipment; 2. Descent vehicle; 3. Cylinders of the orientation system; 4. Instrument compartment;
5. Antennas for telemetry systems; 6. Brake propulsion system; 7. Sun orientation sensor;
8. Vertical builder; 9. Program radio link antenna; 10. Antenna of the radio intelligence system
After this incident, every two months, there were launches on Vostok launch vehicles of any representatives of the earth's fauna. In July, the dogs Chaika and Chanterelle were launched, but unfortunately, at the 19th second of the flight, the side block of the first stage collapsed at the launch vehicle, as a result of which it fell and exploded. The dogs Chaika and Chanterelle died.
The first dogs to fly into space on a return spacecraft (descent vehicle).
Unfortunately, they were not destined to return.
And in August of the 60th, our two prides, Squirrel and Strelochka, made a successful flight! But write down the following information in your piggy bank: Together with Belka and Strelka, there were 40 mice and 2 rats on board. They spent 1 day and 9 hours in space. Shortly after landing, Strelka had six healthy puppies. One of them was personally asked by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. He sent it as a gift to Carolyn Kennedy, daughter of US President John F. Kennedy.
Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to return from space.
There were not only dogs on board Sputnik 5, but also such cute rats.
In December of the same year, Sputnik-6 was launched. The crew of the ship were dogs Mushka and Pchelka, two guinea pigs, two white laboratory rats, 14 black mice of the C57 line, seven mice of hybrids from SBA and C57 mice and five outbred mice. A series of biological experiments, which included research on the possibility of flights by geophysical and space rockets of living beings, observation of the behavior of highly organized animals under the conditions of such flights, as well as the study of complex phenomena in near-Earth space.
Scientists have studied the effects on animals of most factors of a physical and cosmic nature: altered gravity, vibration and overloads, sound and noise stimuli of varying intensity, exposure to cosmic radiation, hypokinesia and hypodynamia. The flight lasted a little over a day. On orbit 17, due to a failure of the braking engine control system, the descent began in an off-design area. It was decided to destroy the device by detonating the charge, in order to exclude an unplanned fall into foreign territory. All living beings on board perished. Despite the fact that the apparatus was destroyed, the objectives of the mission were achieved, the collected scientific data were transmitted to Earth using telemetry and television.
Dogs Mushka and Pcholka before space flight.
After this incident, there were two more successful and one not very successful launches of Vostok missiles. The Americans were indignant and every day became gloomier and gloomier and in every possible way intercepted the encrypted signals and tried to decipher them, but tolerated the fails.
Spy photo obtained by US intelligence who deciphered the radio broadcast code from Sputnik-6
On April 12, 1961, the USSR delivered its final blow and sent Yura into space on the same launch vehicle, in the Vostok-1 spacecraft, which completed one revolution around the Earth and landed at 10 hours 55 minutes. To understand what the Vostok-1 spacecraft is, I will give its overall characteristics:
The mass of the apparatus is 4.725 tons;
Diameter of the hermetic case - 2.2 m;
Length (without antennas) - 4.4 m;
Maximum diameter - 2.43 m
(As I wrote above, I'm not an astronaut, I just had the opportunity to sit in a similar apparatus on earth.) This is a very uncomfortable aircraft, I'll tell you. With my height of 190 cm, it was extremely uncomfortable to sit in a bucket chair, and even in a spacesuit. According to this, Gagarin was selected for height, weight and health. (170/70/excellent) But even Gagarin probably felt uncomfortable in such a tiny capsule.
The descent module "Vostok" and next to it is an ejection seat.
I want to note that the first human flight was fully automatic, but Yura could switch the ship to manual control at any time. To do this, it was necessary to enter a special security code to turn off the automation, which was in a sealed envelope, which was in an egg, an egg in a duck, a duck .... in short, before the flight, Korolev whispered this code to Yurka, after all, you never know? And everything was done for the sake of the fact that no one knew how the human nervous system would behave in space and whether he would go crazy. Therefore, the code for manual control was placed in an envelope that only a sane person could open.
Our universal pride!
I want to tell you some interesting details about the first human flight.
Gagarin was that still "Cedar".
Rocket launches always occur at irregular times.
At 9-57 Gagarin waved his hand personally to the President of America, flying over it.
Bus carrying astronauts to the rocket, blue.
The same bus.
Gagarin could cancel the flight at any moment and be replaced by Titov, who in turn could be replaced by Nelyubov.
Pencils in space are best tied. By the way, due to weightlessness, ordinary fountain pens do not write in space.
During the descent of the spacecraft, due to problems in the propulsion system, the ship began to rotate for 10 minutes with a full revolution amplitude of 1 second. Gagarin, did not frighten the Queen and vaguely reported on an emergency situation, which speaks of his nerves of steel. All descent vehicles of the Vostok type land on a ballistic trajectory, which leads to overloads of up to 10 ji. In addition, the ship gets very hot and crackles wildly in the lower atmosphere, which can put a lot of pressure on the psyche. When the ship reaches a mark of 7 km above the ground, the astronaut ejects, who descends separately from the descent vehicle on his own parachutes. What is ejection on the ship Vostok? When the descent vehicle releases the parachute and the speed gradually drops from 900 km/h to 72 km/h, a pyrotechnic charge is triggered under the cosmonaut's seat and the seat, together with the astronaut, whistles into free fall. Then the cosmonaut must have time to detach from the seat and independently parachute down to earth. And this is with wild overloads, constant fear and distrust of automation. After the ejection, Gagarin's oxygen supply valve did not work and he began to suffocate. After a while, the valve opened and Yura took a deep breath. When the parachute opened, it began to be demolished straight into the Volga. Let me remind you that the water in April is a little cold and he again found himself on the verge of death, and his ability to maneuver with the help of lines saved him. I think it is beyond words that he managed to endure a little during this hour. It was worth it. Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, the most famous (contemporary) person on earth who ever lived.
During the descent, the capsule begins to burn in the lower atmosphere.
Parachute opens at 900 km/h
The capsule lands at a speed of 7m/s
This is how the descent vehicle burns.
Prelaunch check of all systems.
Korolev, without hiding his excitement, communicates with Gagarin during the flight.
The most famous person on the planet! 
On the cover of Time magazine.
On the cover of Life magazine.
But he himself was very modest.
With this, I will finish the first part about the space exploration of the USSR. If you are interested in continuing, I will be happy to write. Later I will talk about other countries, including the United States, which have also done a lot in this area of activity.
A selection of photographs that will help you see the history of the development of the Soviet space program. 
October 4, 1957: Sputnik I was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, becoming the first artificial satellite to be launched into Earth orbit and marking the start of the serious space race. 
November 3, 1957: The dog Laika became the first living creature to orbit the Earth. Laika entered space aboard Sputnik II. Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating. Most likely, the causes of the death of the dog were failures in the operation of the temperature control system. The exact date of her death was not made public until 2002 - according to official information provided to the media by the Soviet authorities, the dog died on the sixth day during its stay in space. 
August 19, 1960: Two dogs, Belka and Strelka, became the first living beings to go into orbit and return to Earth alive. They were accompanied by a rabbit, several mice, flies. Plants were also sent into orbit. All returned alive and unharmed. 
April 12, 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to travel into space and orbit the Earth. He spent 1 hour and 48 minutes in space... 
The Vostok 1 spacecraft carrying Yuri Gagarin takes off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. 
Soviet leader General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev hugs cosmonauts German Titov and Yuri Gagarin after Titov became the second person to orbit our planet. He spent 25 hours in space, becoming the first person to sleep while in orbit. Titov was only 25 years old at the time of the flight, and remains the youngest person to ever go into space. 
June 16, 1963 Valentina Tereshkova became the first female cosmonaut to travel into space. Another nineteen years passed before the second female cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya, went into space. 
March 18, 1965: Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov made the first spacewalk in the history of cosmonautics. Leonov made his journey on the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. 
February 3, 1966: The unmanned spacecraft Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon. This photograph of the Moon's surface was sent back to Earth by a Soviet spacecraft. 
Valentina Komarova, widow of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, kisses a photo of her dead husband on April 26, 1967, during an official funeral ceremony on Red Square in Moscow. Komarov died on his second flight aboard the Soyuz 1 spacecraft on April 23, 1967, when the spacecraft crashed while returning to Earth. He was the first person to die during a space flight and the first Soviet cosmonaut to travel to space multiple times. Shortly before Komarov's death, Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin told the cosmonaut that his country was proud of him. 
1968: Soviet scientists examine two turtles after they returned from a trip to the moon aboard the Zond 5 spacecraft. The spacecraft, carrying flies, plants and bacteria in addition to turtles, circled the moon and splashed down in the Indian Ocean a week later after takeoff. 
November 17, 1970: Lunokhod 1 became the first remote-controlled robot to land on the surface of another celestial body. Lunokhod analyzed the lunar surface and sent more than 20,000 photographs back to Earth, until finally the Soviets lost contact with it after 322 days had passed. 
1975: Venera 9 - this spacecraft was the first to land on another planet and send images back to Earth from the surface of this planet ... 
A photograph of the surface of Venus taken by Venera 9. 
July 17, 1975: Soviet crew commander of the Soyuz spacecraft, Alexei Leonov (left), and commander of the American Apollo mission crew, Thomas Stafford, shake hands in space, somewhere in the West Germany region, after the two spacecraft docked, which was successful. It was the last US manned space mission until the first shuttle flight, which took place in April 1981. 
July 25, 1984: Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a spacewalk. She was also the second woman to go into space, nineteen years after Valentina Tereshkova, and one year before Sally Ride, who became the first American woman to go into space. 
From 1989 to 1999: The Mir space station became the first manned space station. Its construction began in 1986, the station was allowed to return to Earth in 2001. 
1987-88: Vladimir Titov (left) and Musa Manarov became the first people to stay in space for more than a year. The total duration of their mission was 365 days, 22 hours and 39 minutes.
The history of space exploration from the very beginning developed in a bipolar world. Space confrontation has become a good stimulus for both American and Soviet programs. The consequence of such a confrontation was that all successes became a cause for international pride and were advertised on a planetary scale. But this happened only with successes, and failures remained sealed, both for rivals and for their own citizens. Now, decades later, some of the information has been made public. We found unknown facts about the Soviet space program that many have not heard about before.
At the beginning of World War II, there was no rocket technology in the USSR at all, while German scientists were developing several combat missile programs at once. The scientific material that went to the winners as a trophy formed the basis of Soviet developments. Captured German scientists adapted the famous V-2 for space needs, thanks to which in 1957 the first satellite was launched into Earth orbit.
2. The USSR space program came about by accident
Sergei Korolev, one of the leading scientists of the Soviet missile program, kept secret his developments, which were originally aimed at creating intercontinental ballistic missiles. Many at the top of the party did not take seriously the prospect of launching satellites and rockets. Only when Korolev outlined the propaganda prospects for space exploration did serious progress begin in this area.
Belka and Strelka are the first Soviet cosmonaut dogs to make an orbital space flight and return to Earth unharmed. The flight took place on the Sputnik-5 spacecraft. The launch took place on August 19, 1960, the flight lasted more than 25 hours, during which time the ship made 17 complete orbits around the Earth. But few people know that several more animals were sent before Belka and Strelka, which did not return. Many of the test subjects died during takeoff, from overloads and high temperatures. One of the experimental dogs - Laika - died a few hours after the start due to the failure of the thermoregulation system.
4. Yuri Gagarin may not be the first man in space
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space by entering the Earth's orbit on the Vostok spacecraft. However, some historians believe that before the triumphant launch, several unsuccessful attempts could have taken place, during which Gagarin's predecessors were killed. But no data on this matter was made public, and it is quite possible that the documents were destroyed under a program of absolute secrecy.
The launch vehicles for the Vostok spacecraft, which launched the satellites and Gagarin into orbit, were originally developed in parallel with the spy satellite program.
Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov entered orbit on the Voskhod spacecraft on March 18, 1965, during the mission during which Leonov made history by making the first spacewalk. Despite the historic achievement, the mission was fraught with danger: Leonov was at risk of heat stroke and decompression sickness as a result of errors in the design of the suit. Nevertheless, everything went well, but after landing 180 kilometers north of the city of Perm, the cosmonauts had a hard time. In the TASS report, this was called a landing in a "reserve area", which in fact was a remote Permian taiga. After landing, the huge canopy of the parachute, stuck on two tall fir trees, fluttered in the wind. The wild forest was teeming with bears and wolves, and Leonov and Belyaev had to wait about 12 hours before the rescue mission arrived.
While the US was the first to land a man on the moon, the Soviets were the first to launch a lunar rover to the lunar surface. "Lunokhod-1" (Apparatus 8EL No. 203) is the world's first planetary rover that successfully worked on the surface of another celestial body - the Moon. Belonged to a series of Soviet remote-controlled self-propelled vehicles "Lunokhod" for lunar exploration (project E-8), worked on the moon for eleven lunar days (10.5 Earth months).
8. The USSR created the safest descent capsules in history
Despite safety failures in the early days of space exploration, the Soyuz capsule became the most reliable return system for astronauts to Earth, still in use today.
The Soviet manned lunar programs, in contrast to their unmanned missions, proved to be largely inadequate, mainly due to the limited capabilities of the H1 rocket. In general, historians of Russian cosmonautics believe that the collapse of the Soviet lunar program with the participation of the N-1 rocket was largely due not only to the economic difficulties of those years and a split among the chief designers, but also to the installation of the country's leadership on this project. The government did not clearly calculate its financial side, and therefore, when it came to allocating the necessary funds for it, the country's leaders demanded that the designers observe the savings regime.
Buzz Aldrin said that when they flew away from the surface of the moon, they saw an object that was approaching the surface. The American conspiracy theory says that it was the Soviet Luna 15 probe that crashed on the surface of the satellite during landing.
The program for the development of outer space, carried out by the USSR from 1955 to 1991.
USSR space program started in 1955 with the beginning of the practical implementation of the plan to launch the first artificial Earth satellite into space and the creation of the Ministry of General Engineering (MOM). The space program operated for about 35 years until the collapse of the Soviet Union. During this period, she achieved such successes as the launch of the first and second artificial earth satellites (the second one with a living creature on board) in 1957, the world's first manned space flight in 1961, and the first manned spacewalk in 1965.
Retrospective and prerequisites for the creation of the program
The basis of developments in rocket technology and the future space program of the USSR was the research of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, N. I. Kibalchich, I. V. Meshchersky, F. A. Tsander, Yu. V. Kondratyuk and other Russian and Soviet scientists. The first in the USSR research and development organization for the development of rockets was the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), organized by the chemical engineer N. I. Tikhomirov. The GDL was patronized by the head of armaments of the Red Army M.N. Tukhachevsky. He also supported the Leningrad and Moscow groups for the study of jet propulsion (GIRD). With the help of Tukhachevsky, in 1933, the Jet Research Institute (RNII) was created in Moscow, created on the basis of the GDL and Mosgird. The future academician S.P. Korolev and many other specialists took part in the work of the above organizations. After Tukhachevsky's arrest in 1937, many Soviet rocket scientists shared his fate. In 1938, the RNII stopped all work with a completion date of more than three years, concentrating on the development of rockets and rocket boosters for aircraft.
The Soviet leadership forced the use of the A-4 ballistic missile, better known as the V-2 (“V-2”), by the armed forces of Nazi Germany to focus on long-range missiles. Enthusiasts in the field of rocket science were attracted to the large-scale state rocket program. In 1944-1945, groups of specialists were formed in the country to study German captured materials on the V-2 rocket. After the victory in World War II, both the USSR and its former allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition began active work on creating their own missile weapons, and the advantage was in the hands of the United States, which managed to get a few ready-made Vs and attract many German scientists to cooperate. Realizing the importance of new weapons, the Soviet leadership spared no expense to work in this direction. The People's Commissar for Armaments D. F. Ustinov, who during the war years was responsible for the production of artillery systems, took up the development of ballistic missiles. On May 13, 1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR approved the state missile program. In the Ministry of Armaments, the head organization for the development of liquid rockets, NII-88, was created on the basis of artillery plant No. 88 in Kaliningrad, Moscow Region. To work out the methods of acceptance, testing and use of missile weapons, a military NII-4 was formed within the framework of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR, and the State Central Test Site appeared in the Astrakhan region near the village of Kapustin Yar. The first operational missile unit ("special purpose brigade") was created on the basis of a regiment of rocket-propelled mortars. The administrative management of the work was carried out by the Committee on Rocket Technology (later Special Committee No. 2) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, headed by G. M. Malenkov. Under the auspices of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, the development of long-range missiles was supervised by Deputy L.P. Beria Sedov.
Launch of unmanned vehicles
In 1952, the process of preliminary design of the first two-stage intercontinental-range missile R-7 began. In September 1953, the rocket designer S.P. Korolev spoke in Committee No. 2 about including work on an artificial Earth satellite in the R-7 creation program. On May 26, 1954, he submitted a memorandum to D. F. Ustinov with a proposal to create a scientific satellite weighing 2-3 tons, a return satellite, a satellite for a long stay of 1-2 people, an orbital station with regular communication with the Earth. Korolev's initiatives did not find a response until the need to launch an artificial satellite was raised by the world scientific community. In October 1954, the organizing committee of the International Geophysical Year urged the world's leading powers to consider launching artificial Earth satellites in 1955 for scientific research. On July 29, 1955, US President D. Eisenhower made a promise to launch the satellite, and the very next day the Soviet side made a similar promise. On January 30, 1956, the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution on the creation of a geophysical artificial earth satellite and its launch in 1957. In August 1956, Experimental Design Bureau No. 1 for rocket technology, headed by S. P. Korolev, separated from the NII-88. A design department appeared in OKB-1 to develop a future satellite under the leadership of M.K. Tikhonravov. Technical proposals for the implementation of various space projects were developed in OKB-1, after which they were submitted for approval to higher authorities. The scientific expertise of the projects was carried out by the Special Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR headed by M. V. Keldysh.
If until the mid-1950s, Soviet rockets were single-stage, then in 1957, a combat intercontinental multi-stage ballistic missile "R-7" was successfully launched from the new Baikonur cosmodrome. With a length of about 30 m and a weight of about 270 tons, the rocket consisted of four side blocks of the first stage and a central block with its own engine, which served as the second stage. At the start, all engines were switched on simultaneously and developed a thrust of about 400 tons. After running out of fuel, the blocks of the first stage were discarded, and the engines of the second stage continued to work further. In October 1957, it was R-7 that launched the first ever artificial Earth satellite into orbit, launching the era of astronautics. Later, this rocket was modified and turned into a three-stage one.
The first satellite was a small ball with a diameter of 58 cm and a weight of 83.6 kg. Inside its structure were two radio transmitters and a power source. The second satellite was launched into space a month later, in November 1957. It weighed 508.3 kg and was equipped with a pressurized cabin, which contained the dog Laika, the first living creature to leave the Earth. In May 1958, a third satellite entered Earth orbit. Its length was 3.5 m, diameter - 1.5 m, and weight - 1327 kg, of which 968 kg were scientific equipment. The design of this satellite was worked out much more carefully than in the two previous cases. It was equipped not only with an onboard power supply, but also with a solar battery, thanks to which it was operated much longer than its predecessors. The satellite was in flight for 691 days, and the last signal from it was received in 1960, at the height of another space program - to explore the moon. In January 1959, the automatic station "Luna-1" went towards the Earth's satellite. In September and October, the Luna-2 and Luna-3 stations were launched, respectively. The first delivered a pennant with the image of the Soviet coat of arms to the surface of the Earth's satellite, and the second - for the first time in history photographed the invisible side of the Moon.
In 1959-1960, SKB-458 headed by M.K. Yangel and OKB-52 headed by V.N. Chelomey joined the work on space topics. The expansion of space activities provoked competition between designers, in view of which, in 1961, NII-88 was assigned the functions of a "head scientific institution" that provides internal expertise.
Development of manned space programs
From automatic flights, Korolev and his colleagues moved on to preparing a manned flight. For this purpose, the Vostok launch vehicle was developed, and the construction of the spacecraft of the same name began. The main problem was the development of a reliable method for returning the apparatus to Earth. Before achieving the desired result, it took seven times to start the "Vostok" in automatic mode. On April 12, 1961, the first manned flight into space took place: on the Vostok-1 spacecraft, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth and returned safely. The entire flight lasted 108 minutes. For this achievement, Korolev received the second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. In subsequent years, under his leadership, new launches were carried out: in August 1961, Vostok-2, piloted by G. Titov, went into space, a year later - two spacecraft Vostok-3 and Vostok-4, piloted by Nikolaev and Popovich, in June 1963 - "Vostok-5" and "Vostok-6" with Bykovsky and Tereshkova. In October 1964, the multi-seat Voskhod-1 went into orbit with three cosmonauts on board at once, and in March 1965, during the flight of Voskhod-2, for the first time in history, a man exited into open space (this was done by an astronaut A. A. Leonov). In total, during the life of Korolev, eleven people visited his spaceships. The designer and a group of institutions coordinated by him designed spacecraft of the Venera, Mars, Zond series, artificial earth satellites of the Elektron, Molniya-1, Kosmos series, developed the Soyuz spacecraft.
In 1965, UR-500 carrier rockets were launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome with Soviet satellites Proton (in July) and Proton-2 (in November). In 1968, the Proton-K launch vehicle with the D upper stage brought the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Zond-4 onto the flight path to the Moon. He flew around the Moon and returned to Earth. In the same year, a similar journey was made by Zond-5, on board of which were living creatures: turtles, fruit flies, worms, plants, bacteria, and Zond-6. During both flights, photographs of the lunar surface were taken. In 1969, the Zond-7 spacecraft circled the moon.
If in the United States the space program was divided into military and civil back in 1958, then in the USSR all space exploration activities took place in a single direction. Research and development work (R&D) and production were carried out by enterprises of the military-industrial complex, united in 9 ministries subordinate to the Military Industrial Commission (MIC) of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The acceptance and operation of equipment was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, and was carried out by the Main Directorate of Space Facilities of the USSR Ministry of Defense (GUKOS), also known as the Office of the Chief of Space Facilities (UNKS). The work of the military-industrial complex and the Ministry of Defense, in turn, was controlled by the defense department of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the secretariat of the Central Committee. Of the defense nine ministries, the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering (MOM) was the leader in the creation of rocket and space technology, whose enterprises were engaged in the development and production of rockets, rocket engines and spacecraft. The remaining ministries of the military-industrial complex were engaged in the supply of components, devices or systems.
The UNCS, created in the 1960s, united all departments not directly related to combat duty, including the Baikonur and Plesetsk training grounds. The “space units” subordinated to the chief of space facilities carried out pre-launch preparation and launch of spacecraft, and also controlled them in orbit. Combat space systems were not under the jurisdiction of the UNCS.
The scientific side of space research was coordinated by the Interdepartmental Scientific and Technical Council for Cosmonautics, headed by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Institute for Space Research, established in the mid-1960s, played the role of the leading scientific research institute for space research. In the field of planetology, he competed with the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry. Vernadsky (GEOKHI). Biomedical research was first carried out by the State Scientific and Testing Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine, and then, since the 1970s, by the Institute of Biomedical Problems under the 3rd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Health.
The space program of the USSR in the 1970s - 1980s
In 1970, automatic interplanetary stations "Luna-16" and "Luna-17" were launched from Baikonur to the flight path to the Moon, the Lunokhod-1 apparatus was on board the latter. At the end of 1971, the descent vehicle of the Mars-3 automatic interplanetary station made a soft landing on the surface of Mars. A minute and a half after landing, the station began transmitting video signals to Earth. In 1987, the Energia launch vehicle was successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and in 1988, the Energia-Buran launch vehicle, which launched the Buran reusable spacecraft into low Earth orbit. This device was the first in the world to carry out an automatic landing on Earth and in many respects significantly surpassed American analogues of space technology.
The question of the reorganization of Soviet cosmonautics was raised as early as the late 1960s, but real changes in this direction appeared after perestroika. In October 1985, the "Main Directorate for the Creation and Use of Space Technology in the Interests of the National Economy, Scientific Research and International Cooperation in the Peaceful Exploration of Space" (Glavkosmos USSR) was established. Abroad, this institution was perceived as an analogue of NASA. The primary task of Glavkosmos was to search for foreign clients for the commercial use of the RCT, that is, launches of foreign satellites by Soviet carriers and flights of foreign cosmonauts on Soviet ships. In 1988, the activities of the IOM ceased to be a state secret. The defense nine ministries remained intact until 1991, except for the merger of Minsredmash and Minatomenergo into Minatomenergoprom (this was due to the Chernobyl disaster).
The beginning of radical economic transformations in the country worsened the position of the defense industry. The space program also found itself in a difficult political situation: having previously served as an indicator of the advantage of the socialist system over the capitalist one, with the advent of glasnost, it revealed its shortcomings. In 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR reduced spending on cosmonautics by 10%, and left it at the same level in 1991, which in comparable prices meant a fall of 35%. By the end of 1991, the management of the space program, along with the entire previous structure of state administration, ceased to exist. The ministries of the military-industrial complex were disbanded.
The USSR deservedly held the title of the most powerful space power in the world. The first satellite launched into the orbit of the Earth, Belka and Strelka, the flight of the first man into space are more than good reasons for this. But there were scientific breakthroughs and tragedies in Soviet space history unknown to the general public. They will be discussed in our review.
1. Interplanetary station "Luna-1"
The interplanetary station "Luna-1", which was launched on January 2, 1959, became the first spacecraft to successfully reach the vicinity of the moon. The 360-kilogram spacecraft carried a load of Soviet symbols that were supposed to be placed on the surface of the Moon to demonstrate the superiority of Soviet science. However, the craft missed the moon, passing within 6,000 kilometers of its surface.
During the flight to the Moon, an experiment was carried out to create an "artificial comet" - the station released a cloud of sodium vapor, which glowed for several minutes and made it possible to observe the station from Earth as a 6th magnitude star. Interestingly, Luna-1 was at least the fifth attempt by the USSR to launch a spacecraft to a natural satellite of the Earth, the first 4 ended in failure. Radio signals from the station ceased three days after launch. Later in 1959, the Luna 2 probe reached the lunar surface with a hard landing.
Launched on February 12, 1961, the Soviet space probe Venera-1 launched towards Venus to land on its surface. As in the case of the Moon, this was not the first launch - the device 1VA No. 1 (also dubbed "Sputnik-7") failed. Although the probe itself was supposed to burn up upon re-entry into the atmosphere of Venus, the descent capsule was planned to reach the surface of Venus, which would make it the first anthropogenic object on the surface of another planet.
The initial launch went well, but communication with the probe was lost after a week (presumably due to overheating of the direction sensor on the Sun). As a result, the unmanaged station passed 100,000 kilometers from Venus.
The Luna-3 station, launched on October 4, 1959, was the third spacecraft successfully sent to the Moon. Unlike the previous two probes of the Luna program, this one was equipped with a camera that was designed to take pictures of the far side of the Moon for the first time in history. Unfortunately, the camera was primitive and complex, so the pictures turned out to be of poor quality.
The radio transmitter was so weak that the first attempts to transmit images to Earth failed. When the station approached the Earth, having made a flight around the Moon, 17 photos were obtained, in which scientists found that the “invisible” side of the Moon is mountainous, and unlike the one that is turned towards the Earth.
4The First Successful Landing On Another Planet
On August 17, 1970, the Venera-7 automatic research space station was launched, which was supposed to land a descent vehicle on the surface of Venus. In order to survive in the atmosphere of Venus as long as possible, the lander was made of titanium and equipped with thermal insulation (it was assumed that the pressure at the surface could reach 100 atmospheres, the temperature - 500 ° C, and the wind speed at the surface - 100 m / s).
The station reached Venus, and the apparatus began its descent. However, the descent vehicle's drag parachute burst, after which it fell for 29 minutes, eventually crashing into the surface of Venus. It was believed that the craft could not survive such an impact, but later analysis of the recorded radio signals showed that the probe transmitted temperature readings from the surface within 23 minutes after a hard landing.
5. The first artificial object on the surface of Mars
"Mars-2" and "Mars-3" - two automatic interplanetary stations - a twin, which were launched in May 1971 to the Red Planet with a difference of several days. Since the US had beaten the Soviet Union to orbit Mars first (Mariner 9, which also launched in May 1971, beat two Soviet probes by two weeks to become the first spacecraft to orbit another planet), the USSR wanted to make the first landing on the surface. Mars.
The Mars 2 lander crashed on the surface of the planet, and the Mars 3 lander managed to make a soft landing and began transmitting data. But the transmission stopped after 20 seconds due to a severe dust storm on the surface of Mars, as a result of which the USSR lost the first clear images taken on the surface of the planet.
6. The first automatic device that delivered extraterrestrial matter to Earth
Since the American astronauts of Apollo 11 had already brought the first samples of lunar matter to Earth, the USSR decided to launch the first automated space probe to the Moon to collect lunar soil and return to Earth. The first Soviet apparatus, Luna-15, which was supposed to reach the surface of the Moon on the day of the launch of Apollo 11, crashed while trying to land.
Before that, 5 attempts were also unsuccessful due to problems with the launch vehicle. However, Luna 16, the sixth Soviet probe, was successfully launched after Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. The station landed in the Sea of Plenty. After that, she took soil samples (in the amount of 101 grams) and returned to Earth.
7. The first three-seat spacecraft
Launched on October 12, 1964, Voskhod 1 became the first spacecraft to have a crew of more than one. Although the Voskhod was touted as an innovative spacecraft, it was actually a slightly modified version of the Vostok, which Yuri Gagarin first flew into space. The United States at that time did not even have two-seater ships.
"Voskhod" was considered unsafe even by Soviet designers, since the place for three crew members was freed up due to the fact that ejection seats were abandoned in the design. Also, the cabin was so cramped that the astronauts were in it without spacesuits. As a result, if the cabin had depressurized, the crew would have died. In addition, the new landing system, consisting of two parachutes and an antediluvian rocket, was only tested once before launch.
8. The first astronaut of African descent
On September 18, 1980, as part of the eighth expedition to the Salyut-6 orbital scientific station, the Soyuz-38 spacecraft was launched. Its crew consisted of Soviet cosmonaut Yury Viktorovich Romanenko and explorer Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban aviator who became the first person of African descent to go into space. Mendez stayed aboard the Saluat-6 for a week, where he took part in 24 experiments in chemistry and biology.
9. First docking with an uninhabited object
On February 11, 1985, after a six-month absence from the Salyut-7 space station, communication with it was suddenly interrupted. The short circuit led to the fact that all the electrical systems of Salyut-7 turned off, and the temperature at the station dropped to -10 ° C.
In an attempt to save the station, an expedition was sent to it on a Soyuz T-13 spacecraft converted for this purpose, piloted by the most experienced Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov. The automated docking system did not work, so manual docking had to be carried out. The docking was successful, and work to restore the space station took place over several days.
10. The first human sacrifice in space
On June 30, 1971, the Soviet Union was looking forward to the return of three cosmonauts who spent 23 days at the Salyut-1 station. But after the landing of the Soyuz-11, not a single sound came from inside. When the capsule was opened from the outside, three astronauts were found dead inside, with dark blue spots on their faces, and blood flowing from their noses and ears.
According to investigators, the tragedy occurred immediately after the separation of the descent vehicle from the orbital module. A depressurization occurred in the cabin of the spacecraft, after which the astronauts suffocated.
Spaceships that were designed at the dawn of the space age seem like rarities compared to. But it is possible that these projects will be implemented.
