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Spaceship spiral. Air-orbital system

It is assumed that Dream Chaser will deliver cargo and a crew of up to 7 people into low-Earth orbit.

Dream Chaser is being created under a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the ISS. The first flight to the orbital station is planned for 2020.

Star Wars at the Dawn of the Space Age

Perhaps this project would not have aroused interest in Russia if not for one important circumstance: the appearance, as well as a number of technical solutions used in the construction of Dream Chaser, repeat the Soviet project of a reusable spacecraft, which was developed half a century ago.

We are talking about the Spiral project, which became the forerunner of the much more famous Buran. But the purpose of the “Spiral” was by no means peaceful: this ship was supposed to become part of not fictional, but real “star wars”.

Three weeks after the first artificial Earth satellite went into orbit, the United States began preparing a response. It was not about launching our own “artificial moon”, but about creating a combat spacecraft.

The X-20 Dyna-Soar was conceived as a space interceptor-reconnaissance-bomber. In addition to conducting reconnaissance, it was supposed to destroy enemy satellites and, while “diving” into the atmosphere, carry out bombing strikes on targets on Earth. Of course, we were talking about nuclear bombings.

Impact from orbit

When it became known in the USSR what the Americans were working on, the country’s leadership set the task of creating a similar combat spacecraft.

Thus, a project called “Spiral” was born. The spacecraft was to be launched into orbit using a hypersonic booster aircraft and a rocket stage. The landing was planned as a normal aircraft.

After the formation of the general concept at the Central Research Institute 30 Air Force, the task was transferred to the OKB-155 design bureau Artem Mikoyan. The head of the Spiral project was appointed Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.

The military wanted to get a spacecraft that could solve several problems at once. Therefore, the developers envisaged several modifications of the spacecraft at once: a reconnaissance aircraft, an interceptor, and a space bomber.

The last role deserves special mention. The Soviet spacecraft was being prepared for attacks on aircraft carrier groups of a potential enemy. Armed with a space-to-ground missile with a nuclear warhead, the spacecraft was supposed to attack the target already on the first orbit. Even the missile's deviation from the target by 200 meters ensured the guaranteed destruction of an enemy aircraft carrier.

The creators of Spiral were also preparing for spacecraft combat in orbit. In addition to weapons, a unique capsule was developed for the Soviet spacecraft, in which the crew was supposed to escape in the event of the ship being hit by the enemy.

Brilliant "Bastard"

The Spiral project was developed in conditions when computer technology was far from perfect. Therefore, many solutions that are entrusted to computers today had to be looked for in other areas.

A huge problem was overcoming the dense layers of the atmosphere during descent. Critical areas were protected using special thermal protection, which was later refined during the creation of Buran.

But this was not enough. In the 1960s, it was virtually impossible to control the descent so that the oncoming air flow only touched the areas protected by thermal protection. And then Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky proposed to equip the Spiral with folding wing consoles.

The self-balancing system worked like this: at the moment when the speed reached its maximum during descent from orbit, the delta wing consoles automatically folded, “exposing” the protected nose and bottom to impact.

The fuselage of the spacecraft was made according to the design of the load-bearing body with a strongly blunted feathered triangular shape in plan.

One of the creators, looking at his brainchild, suddenly said: “This is a bast shoe!” And so it happened: the combat spacecraft was affectionately called by its developers “Laptem” or “Space bast shoe”.

Titov's team: who should have piloted the space attack aircraft

While the designers were developing the spacecraft, its future pilots began training. In 1966, a group was formed at the Cosmonaut Training Center that worked on the “Spiral” topic. Its most famous participant was Soviet cosmonaut number two German Titov. The group also included future cosmonauts Vasily Lazarev And Anatoly Filipchenko.

Work on the spacecraft was difficult. And it’s not just the complexity of the task. At the same time, several space programs were being implemented in the USSR, and the Spiral project was at the end of the queue for funding. Perhaps this happened because intelligence reported that the American project to create a combat orbital ship was stalling and close to failure. In addition, OKB-1, which after death Sergei Korolev headed Vasily Mishin, was extremely jealous of its competitors, convincing the Soviet leadership of the meaninglessness of the very idea of an orbital aircraft.

In 1969, a reorganization took place at the Cosmonaut Training Center, and young people joined the group of pilots working on the “Spiral” topic: Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Dzhanibekov,Yuri Romanenko, Vladimir Lyakhov. They will all go to space, but they will not become Spiral pilots.

How "Spiral" was changed to "Buran"

Since 1969, the project began launching suborbital vehicles analogous to the BOR (Unmanned Orbital Rocket Plane). Three modifications of BOR devices were models on a scale of 1:3. Seven launches were carried out, of which two were completely successful.

In 1973, the department of the cosmonaut corps working on the Spiral project was disbanded due to the closure of the project.

The paradox, however, is that at that time the issue of the need to create a reusable space system in the USSR was already being discussed in government circles.

In 1976 USSR Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov approved the tactical and technical specifications for the development of such a system. And the need was explained by the fact that such work had begun even earlier... in the USA. A decade later, the situation was repeated exactly, only now the Energia-Buran program was supposed to be a response to the Space Shuttle program.

To work on the project, the research and production association “Molniya” was created, the head of which was... Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.

“Spiral” was considered an obsolete project that did not meet the latest requirements of the time.

Experts, however, believe that many of the solutions used in the Spiral were much more successful than those later used by both the Americans and our designers when creating the Buran system.

The “Spiral” prototype nevertheless visited space, more than once. In 1979, the BOR-4 device was created, which was a dimensional and weight model of the “Spiral” on a scale of 1:2.

In 1982-1984, BOR-4 made four orbital flights. For printing, the launches of the device were encrypted under the names of the satellites of the Cosmos series.

After one of the flights, BOR-4 splashed down in the Indian Ocean, where not only Soviet warships were waiting for it, but also representatives of the Australian Navy, who took a huge number of photographs of the Soviet apparatus. The photographs were transferred to the CIA, from where they were transferred to NASA.

After conducting the analysis, the American engineers were delighted: they recognized the constructive solutions of their Russian colleagues as ingenious. So much so that they were first actually copied in the HL-20 orbital plane project, which was not implemented in the nineties, and have now migrated to Dream Chaser.

There is no point in being offended by the Yankees. They successfully use what we didn’t need. We can only bite our elbows and regret the missed opportunities.

The times of the Red Empire - the Soviet Union - are moving further into the depths of history. But many more of its secrets are hidden from our view. Recently, information was declassified about the Soviet Shuttle fighter called “Spiral”, this is the name of the aerospace system - which was a reusable space fighter-bomber that was developed by Soviet scientists in the sixties of the last century. The Soviet Spiral project was our response to the American attempt to create the X-20 Dyna Soar space reconnaissance bomber.

The Spiral system included an aircraft that launched the ship into orbit, an upper stage, and the single-seat space module itself. This system was created for combat use in space, as well as for inspection of any space objects to determine their purpose or destruction. This information was announced on TV on the Rossiya channel on April 17, 2010.

An improved version of Spiral is the MAX multi-purpose space interceptor. Although MAX could be used for military purposes, it was developed mainly for economic purposes - for launching people and cargo into orbit, for use in conjunction with an orbital space station. The developer was NPO MOLNIYA.

In 1969, the Experimental Manned Orbital Aircraft (EPOS) was tested - an atmospheric analogue of the Spiral. We were already ready at that time for dominance in space. But where are all these ships? Where did they go? In the race for America, original projects were not needed.

Everyone knows the American science fiction film “Star Wars”. But we were the first to propose and implement the idea of Star Wars. We were already ready at that time for battle in space. While the American Shuttle is limited in its maneuverability in space and is unable to fly in the atmosphere, the Soviet orbital complexes were developed and tested as fully functional systems.

In 1961, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin made the first space flight around the Earth in human history. And already in 1965 in the USSR, Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky designed the “Spiral” - this was the name given to the space-controlled interceptor fighter, which was called the “Shuttle” hunter. It was a combat ship for warfare in the atmosphere and space, with a cruising speed of 6000 km/h. It had unusual shapes and, of course, it would be wrong to call it an airplane. Possessing a wide semicircular fuselage, it looked more like a slightly flattened shark. Its belonging to the class of aircraft was revealed only by its small backward-sloping wings, which gave it the outline of a swift bird. The first "Spiral" did not have propulsion engines, so it descended to the airfield while gliding in the air. “Spiral” could be used both in automatic mode and with manual control.

The Spiral provided a system for rescuing the pilot from any height in the form of an emergency shootable capsule and a conventional ejection system. At the same time, a secret team was organized to train pilots to control ships of this type. It included the well-known Dzhanibekov, and German Titov was appointed commander of the combat cosmonauts. The first Spiral model, its subsonic analogue, EPOS, was launched on December 6, 1969 to an altitude of 40 km. The first strategic hypersonic missile-carrying aircraft was developed, designed to launch it into orbit. And here, Soviet engineers took an unconventional path: in the event of a military confrontation, it is enough to destroy the stationary Space Launch Complex and there will be nowhere to launch combat vehicles into space. And they can be launched using an airplane from almost any specially equipped heavy airfield; it is mobile. The plane lifted the ship into the stratosphere and it took off with the engines turned on directly from its “back”. Therefore, the aircraft was designed for a very large load capacity in order to withstand the recoil when launching the “Spiral” or EPOS.

The first launch of EPOS was made in 1976, the test was successful. As experts write, EPOS had unique aerodynamic characteristics. It was tested by Igor Volk, Valery Menitsky and Alexander Fedotov. In addition to EPOS, small-sized automatic models of the orbital ship were also tested under the general name “Bor” - Unmanned Orbital Rocket Plane.
“Spiral” was ready for mass production, but Defense Minister Grechko, with one stroke of his pen, threw the project into the trash, saying:
- There is no need to engage in fiction!

The intervention of D.F. also contributed to the freezing of the project. Ustinov, who was at that time secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Due to false political ambitions at the insistence of D.F. Ustinov and Minister of General Engineering S.A. Afanasyev began a race with the Americans and their Space Shuttle project, sacrificing Spiral - a system that, according to competent domestic and foreign experts, is much more progressive.

— If we add that the USSR was, perhaps, the only country where space problems were separated from aviation and the aviation industry, and even in the absence of a powerful coordinating organization like the American NASA, then what is surprising is not the gradual elimination of work on “Spiral”, but that how much has been accomplished. — Writes Vitaly Vladislavovich Lebedev, member of the St. Petersburg Section of the History of Aviation and Cosmonautics at the IIET named after. S.I. Vavilov RAS.

Lozino-Lodzinsky was asked to take up a new project - “Buran”, which he successfully did. But Buran, compared to Spiral and MAX, turned out to be a much more expensive project. The same EPOS flew four times, testing thermal insulation for the Buran. The first full-fledged launch of Buran in 1982 was successful, when it landed near Australia. But Gleb Evgenievich did not stop working on his brainchild; in parallel with the Buran project, he improved and tested Spiral. A new modification of it was developed: “MAKS” - Multi-Purpose Aerospace System. MAX was intended for orbital patrol in space over the territory of our country. She could, for example, get close to American satellites, examining them for the degree of danger to the country, and she was also equipped with weapons to destroy both satellites and Shuttles. MAX consisted of a two-seat space module, but with propulsion engines, which made it maneuverable in the atmosphere, and a jettisonable fuel tank. In addition to two pilots, MAX is capable of delivering seven tons of cargo or, instead, passengers into orbit.

This “structure” was supposed to be launched into the atmosphere by a special aircraft. By that time, a similar project already existed - the Mriya heavy transport aircraft. When calculating the cost of launching one ton of cargo into orbit for various spacecraft, including the American Shuttles, MAX turned out to be the cheapest carrier. In addition, it could be sold abroad, since the infrastructure for civil aviation is available in any country.

When on November 15, 1988, Buran made its first and last automatic flight, the Americans were very surprised. They asked Lozino-Lodzinski:
- How so? After all, you don't have software!
It turns out that everything is there. It’s just not clear why we still use American Windows. Who knows what “cockroaches” are hidden in it, and whether we will lose the entire Internet if something serious happens...

"Buran" was ready for production. Moreover, our designers did not create a copy of the Shuttle, but a ship that was more efficient in all respects. Even his only flight proved this. It was ready to perform applied tasks in space and ensure the regular delivery of people and cargo into orbit.
But... then Mikhail Gorbachev signed a disarmament agreement with Reagan in Reykjavik, and the project was scrapped. It turned out to be unnecessary! Long live world peace! Hooray! And “Buran” - in his basket!

— Despite its external similarity to the Shuttle, Buran is a fundamentally more advanced spacecraft; and the main result of intense long-term efforts was the triumphant two-orbit unmanned flight of the Buran with automatic landing on November 15, 1988. The flight, lasting 206 minutes, began at 9:11 a.m., at an altitude of 50 km, “Buran” made contact with tracking stations in the area of the landing complex, and at 9:24:42 a.m., ahead of the estimated time by only a second, “Buran” overcoming stormy gusts of side wind at a speed of 263 km/h, he gracefully touched the runway and after 42 seconds, having run 1620 m, stopped in its center with a deviation from the center line of only 3 m! — Vyacheslav Kazmin writes in his article.

This was the finest hour of the Chief Designer of the Buran, Doctor of Technical Sciences Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky.
On November 28, 2001, Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky dies without seeing the production of his Spirals, Maxes and Burans. But this spring, the Americans, having announced the curtailment of the Shuttle project, are launching a completely new spacecraft into space... which, in appearance, is exactly like Spiral. Did they develop it themselves or buy a ready-made project, because in the era of market relations everything is bought and sold? Who knows. Moreover, we have just signed another disarmament agreement with the hypocritically smiling US President. However, why does America really need outdated weapons if it now has its own - American MAX? The question is rhetorical... Only now they will “sniff” and control our military satellites, and not us...

Currently, something has moved in this direction: Roscosmos has announced a competition to create a new generation of reusable manned spacecraft. It is being created for transport and technical maintenance of manned orbital stations and other objects of the near-Earth orbital group.
The Clipper project is already under development. It is designed not only to enter orbit, but also to fly to the Moon. "Clipper" is a six-seat reusable spacecraft launched using an Energia launch vehicle.

PS This information does not claim to be complete on this topic. It was obtained from open sources. Official documents are still classified.

http://www.proza.ru/avtor/shaman7ho

Battle for the Stars-2. Space confrontation (part I) Pervushin Anton Ivanovich

Aerospace system "Spiral"

Since 1962, OKB-155 of Artem Mikoyan has proactively conducted research into combined aerospace systems.

According to the “Mikoyanites,” replacing a ballistic missile with a carrier aircraft provided a wide opportunity to choose the coordinates of the launch point, excluding reference to a complex and expensive ground-based launch complex.

In addition, there was no need to create “exclusion zones” and select a withdrawal trajectory. All this made it possible to significantly expand the possibilities for the military use of space systems and looked like an adequate response to the Daina-Sor program. On October 17, 1964, a day after the overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev, a commission was created to investigate the activities of OKB-52. On October 19, Air Force Commander-in-Chief Konstantin Vershinin called Vladimir Chelomey and said that, in obedience to the order, he was forced to transfer all materials on spaceplanes to the Mikoyan Design Bureau.

After the transfer of Pavel Tsybin’s projects for “PKA” from Sergei Korolev’s OKB-1 and for rocket planes of the “R” series from Vladimir Chelomey’s OKB-52, the development of an aerospace theme under the code name “Spiral” began in Artem Mikoyan’s bureau.

Officially, the creation of the Spiral aerospace system (“Topic 50”, later “105–205”) was initiated by order of the Ministry of Aviation Industry dated July 30, 1965. The number “50” in the title symbolized the approaching 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, when the first subsonic tests of the prototype 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 creation of the Air-Orbital System (AOS) - an experimental complex for a manned orbital aircraft "Spiral". A competitive project was developed at the Sukhoi Design Bureau, which intended to use the T-4 (“100”) aircraft as an air carrier.

In accordance with the customer's requirements, the designers were tasked with creating a videoconferencing system consisting of a hypersonic booster aircraft (HSA) and an orbital aircraft (OS) with a mock-up accelerator. The system starts horizontally, using an accelerating cart. After gaining speed and altitude with the help of the GSR engines, the orbital aircraft separated and gained speed with the help of the rocket engines of the two-stage accelerator. The reusable combat manned single-seat OS was planned to be used in reconnaissance, interceptor or attack aircraft with an orbit-Earth class missile, as well as for inspection of space objects.

The range of reference orbits was 130–150 kilometers, and the flight task was to be completed over two or three orbits. The maneuverability of an orbital aircraft using an on-board rocket propulsion system had to provide a change in orbital inclination by 17° (an attack aircraft with a rocket on board - 7°) or a change in orbital inclination by 12° with an increase to an altitude of up to 1000 kilometers. After completing an orbital flight, the spaceplane must enter the atmosphere with a large angle of attack (45–65°), control provided for 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 to 6000 kilometers with a lateral deviation of 1100–1500 kilometers was specified. The OS is launched into the landing area with a choice of speed vector along the axis of the runway and lands using a turbojet engine on a class II unpaved airfield with a landing speed of 250 km/h.

On June 29, 1966, Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky, appointed Chief Designer of the system, signed the prepared preliminary design.

According to the preliminary design, the aerospace system with an estimated mass of 115 tons consisted of a reusable hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR, Product 50–50, Product 205), carrying an orbital stage consisting of the reusable orbital aircraft itself (Product 50, Product 205). Product 105") and a disposable two-stage rocket booster.

The hypersonic booster aircraft (according to some sources, it was supposed to be created by the Andrei Tupolev Design Bureau) was a tailless aircraft 38 meters long, with a highly swept wing of the double delta type with a span of 16.5 meters, with vertical stabilizing surfaces at the ends of the wing. The sealed cabin was designed for a crew of two and was equipped with ejection seats. In the upper part of the GSR fuselage, 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.

The turbojet engine block was located under the fuselage and had a common adjustable air intake. Considering various options for the future aerospace system, the designers settled on two options for the GSR power plant with four multi-mode turbojet engines running on liquid hydrogen (promising option) or kerosene (conservative option). GSR was used to accelerate the system to hypersonic speed of Mach 6 for the 1st option or Mach 4 for the 2nd option; the separation of the stages of the system was supposed to be carried out at an altitude of 28–30 kilometers or 22–24 kilometers, respectively.

To launch the OS into orbit after separation from the GSR, a disposable accelerator was created, which was a two-stage rocket weighing 52.5 tons with an oxygen-hydrogen or oxygen-kerosene rocket engine. The design of the accelerator was carried out by OKB-1 of Sergei Korolev, who was very interested in the project.

After launching the OS to the intended point, the accelerator separated and fell into the world ocean. The altitude range of working orbits varied from a minimum of about 200 kilometers to a maximum of about 600 kilometers; The launch azimuth direction, due to the presence of the GSR, was determined by the specific purpose of the flight and, depending on the launch point, could vary from 0 to 97°. The mass of the payload put into orbit was 1300 kilograms.

The single-seat orbital aircraft, 8 meters long and weighing from 8 to 10 tons (depending on the purpose), was made according to the design of a triangular-shaped load-bearing body.

It had swept wing consoles, which during insertion and in the initial phase of descent from orbit were raised to 45° from the vertical, and during gliding they were rotated to 95° from the vertical. The wingspan in this case was 7.4 meters.

To maneuver the OS in orbit, the main liquid rocket engine with a thrust of 1500 kilograms was used, as well as two emergency ones with a thrust of 40 kilograms each. For orientation and control, micromotors with an autonomous fuel supply system were used - small-sized liquid rocket engines in two blocks of three nozzles with a thrust of 16 kilograms and five nozzles with a thrust of 1 kilogram. All engines of the orbital aircraft ran on high-boiling fuel (nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine). The amount of fuel required by the control system was determined from the duration of the orbital flight - about two days.

Emergency rescue of the pilot was provided for at any stage of the flight using a detachable headlight-shaped capsule cabin, which had an ejection system from the OS, a navigation unit, a parachute and braking engines for re-entry into the atmosphere if it was impossible to return the entire aircraft from orbit. In the atmosphere, the pilot could eject from the cockpit.

To protect the fuselage from thermodynamic heating during reentry, the design included a heat shield of an original design. As thermal strength tests showed, its maximum heating did not exceed 1500 °C, and the remaining structural elements, being in the aerodynamic “shadow,” heated up even less. Therefore, in the production of analogues, it was possible to use titanium (and even in some places aluminum) alloys without special coating, which significantly reduced the cost of the design compared to the later Buran spacecraft.

To avoid destruction from rapid heating during entry into the earth's atmosphere, the screen had to have high ductility, which a niobium alloy could provide. But it had not yet been produced, and the designers temporarily, before mastering production from niobium, went to replace the material. The heat shield had to be made from heat-resistant steel VNS, and not solid, but from many plates according to the principle of fish scales. In addition, it was suspended on ceramic bearings and, when the heating temperature fluctuated, automatically changed its shape, maintaining a stable position relative to the body.

Thus, the constancy of the orbital aircraft configuration was ensured in all modes.

After descending to an altitude of 50 kilometers, the spaceplane went into gliding flight. As soon as its speed became below sound speed, the air intake at the base of the keel opened and the turbojet engine was started by the incoming air flow. Unlike the descent vehicles of spacecraft, the spaceplane pilot could make a horizontal maneuver up to 800 kilometers from the descent trajectory.

The standard landing was carried out on a four-post ski chassis, retractable into the side niches of the hull (front supports) and into the bottom section of the fuselage (rear supports).

The landing gear legs were spaced quite widely and should have ensured landing on almost any ground.

When designing the aerospace system, designers assumed the required 20–30 flights per year.

From a technical point of view, the work went well.

In 1967, a group of astronauts was formed in the cosmonaut corps, which was to undergo training for flights on the Spiral. It included German Titov, who had already flown into space, and Anatoly Filipchenko and Anatoly Kuklin, who were still preparing for space flights.

According to calculations, Spiral promised to be much more profitable than the missile systems that existed at that time. The payload mass of the system was 12.5% of its launch mass versus 2.5% for the Soyuz. The 320-ton Soyuz had a 2.8-ton descent module returning to Earth (0.9%), while the Spiral reused 85% of the structure, and it did not require a spaceport.

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A potential enemy began creating the Star Wars system. It surrounds the USSR with a chain of space stations with reconnaissance equipment and laser cannons to destroy Soviet ballistic missiles.

SEE ALL PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY The USSR did not wait for the enemy to build a noose of orbital stations. The Union strikes back. Hypersonic planes take off from airfields, each carrying a small space fighter with a characteristic nose shape, similar to the nose of a Russian bast shoe.

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The combat mission was completed - the enemy Star Wars system was completely destroyed in 80 minutes.
This is not science fiction. This is a scenario for the use of a combat orbital system, which the USSR began to develop in the mid-60s under the code name “Spiral”.

The system of orbital aircraft received the name “Spiral” for the characteristic descent of an orbital fighter to the ground, which was carried out in a ballistic spiral.
A design bureau led by designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky worked on the Spiral project.
As part of the project, a MiG 105.11 atmospheric test vehicle was created to study the aerodynamic design.
A detachment of space pilots was also organized to fly on the Spiral apparatus.
An orbital fighter armed with a cannon was planned as a combat strike element. In space, one direct hit from a cannon shell is enough to destroy any spacecraft. Such a gun was created and tested at one of the Salyut space stations.
The model of the MiG 105.11 orbital fighter had a specific shape of the nose, which received the nickname “Space Bast”.

As part of the Spiral program, atmospheric flights were carried out on the MiG 105.11 in the mid-to-late 1970s.
In the 80s, space experiments began with a prototype orbiter. For research, a space model of BOR was created. Several launches were made to test the scheme. In all cases, the BOK model landed in the ocean - there were no landing devices or automatic landing systems on these models.
“Space Shot” turned out to be extremely successful. Its design differed from both the Shuttle and Buran. Entry into the atmosphere and descent were much safer than on the Shuttle and from Buran.
The “Space Shooter” was created as a combat vehicle, so it had a capsule to rescue the space pilot. In any situation, the pilot could descend on the device to an altitude of 60-50 kilometers and leave the device in a capsule. If such a system had been installed on the American Shuttle, the crews of the lost Challenger and Columbia shuttles would have been saved.
The advantage of the Spiral system is its exceptionally fast reaction time and high stealth. The spacecraft is launched using a rocket in a few weeks. The launch vehicle and spacecraft must be brought to the cosmodrome. Assemble, check, deliver to the launch pad. The launch preparation time is several tens of hours. During this time, the enemy can easily destroy the missile during delivery to the launch position and preparation for launch.
Spiral fighters could be launched from any significant airfield. The preparation and take-off of booster aircraft took not weeks, but only two hours.
“Space bast shoes” could quickly maneuver in course and altitude and hit elements of the enemy’s orbital group.

The Spiral orbital system was destroyed by the Soviet Union itself. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee decided that it was necessary to create a Soviet analogue of the Shuttle - Energia - Buran. This system was considered more promising and had a dual purpose. It seemed to Soviet leaders that the Spiral combat system was morally outdated. It was a wrong decision. Enormous amounts of money were invested in the Energia-Buran system, and it made its only flight in automatic mode.

... The fates of brilliant designers developed 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 five-year Air Force 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 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 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 speed 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.

According to the preliminary design "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, to speed up work on AKS in general, 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 chosen aircraft launch scheme, it made it possible to implement fundamentally new properties for means of launching military loads into space:

Launching into orbit 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 stage;

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 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 - low 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 a flying aircraft with a length of 8 m and a width of a flat fuselage of 4 m, made according to the “load-bearing body” design, having a strongly blunt triangular feather shape in plan view.

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 TZE 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:

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 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.

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 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 carried out 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 updated 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 during 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 a 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 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 astronauts 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 was the last year of the 4th Department of the 1st Directorate of the Cosmonaut Center - 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 development schedule 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. It is no coincidence that the further development of the Spiral project followed the path of using subsonic heavy-lift 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. There were a large number of 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, extracted 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 book series "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

Star Wars General: Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.