Soviet space program

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Having learned a bitter lesson during World War II at a cost of 20 million lost lives and the devastation of its most populated part, the Soviet Union undertook projects to modernize its defense -- to build rockets, nuclear weapons, and instruments to resist attack of any potential enemy. Global delivery capabilities of the first ICBM rocket (R-7 Semyorka) soon opened the era of space exploration.

Being a strictly defense program, the early Soviet space program was classified. Sergey Korolev, head of the Soviet space program, was known only as the "chief designer" during his lifetime. Announcements of success were delayed until success was certain, and failures were kept secret. Only through Gorbachev's policy of glasnost have many facts about the program become public knowledge.

1 Origins
2 Firsts
3 Internal Competition
4 After Korolev
5 Failures
6 In-flight deaths
7 Reliability
8 Projects
9 See also
10 External links

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Origins

The theory of space exploration was well-established in the USSR before the Second World War by the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and early experiments of reactive propulsion study group GIRD. The breakthrough advances were made by Hermann Oberth and Werner von Braun in Germany during the war, which in turn were founded on the work of Robert Goddard before the war. The USSR captured the V-2 production sites (after the Americans secretly moved most Nazi scientists to the US - see Operation Paperclip), and several hundred technicians, along with several rockets. Under the direction of Dimitri Ustinov, the designer and engineer Sergei Korolev inspected the rockets; aided by the German prisoners, they built a replica of the V-2 called the R-1. The weight of the Soviet nuclear warheads required a much more powerful booster. Also, Korolev was dedicated to the use of liquid-fuelled cryogenic rockets he was experimenting with in late 1930s. This resulted in the design of the R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was successfully tested in August of 1957. Because of it's global range and large payload capability (~5 tons) the reliable R7 a was not only effective as a heavy nuclear charge strategic delivery system, but as an excellent basis for a space launch vehicle.

The Soviet space program was tied into the USSR's Five-Year Plans and from the start was reliant on support from the Soviet military. In January 1956, plans were approved for Earth-orbiting satellites to gain knowledge of the space environment (Sputnik) and for unmanned military reconnaissance satellites (Zenit), with development work for a manned earth orbiting flight by 1964 and a lunar mission at an earlier date. Following the global propaganda success of the first Sputnik, Korolev was charged to accelerate the manned program, the design of which was combined with the Zenit program to produce the Vostok spacecraft.

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Firsts

Two days after the United States announced its intention to launch a satellite, on July 31, 1956, the Soviet Union announced its intention to do the same. Sputnik 1 became the first satellite with its launch October 4, 1957. It stunned citizens the world over.

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The Soviet space program led the space race from 1957 through 1967 setting up many records:

First intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka
First satellite, Sputnik 1
First animal to enter orbit in space, Laika on Sputnik 2
First person in space and in orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok programme
First dual manned flight and approach in space with Vostok 3 and Vostok 4. While considered by some to be the first rendezvous, Vostok 3 and 4 were 5km apart, and on different orbital planes. American Gemini 6A and Gemini 7 were the first true rendezvous, three years later.
First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6
First three man crew, Voskhod 1
First EVA, Voskhod 2 by Aleksei Leonov
First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.
First firing of a rocket in Earth Orbit, Luna 1
First probe on the moon, Luna 2
First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
First probe to land on Venus, Venera 3
First probe to land on Mars and return data, Mars 3
First samples automatically returned to Earth from another body, Luna 16
First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1
First space station, Salyut 1 in 1971
First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya in 1984 while on Salyut 7 space station
First crew to spend over one year in space, V. Titov and Manarov on board of TM-4 - Mir Dec 12 1987
First permanently manned space station, Mir, which orbited the Earth from 1986 until 2001
First space satellite, launched on 7 July 1998 from submarine Novomoscovsk

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Internal Competition

Unlike the American Space programme which had NASA as a single coordinating structure directed by former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun, the USSR's program was split between several competing design groups lead by Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko and Vladimir Chelomei.

Following the remarkable successes of Sputniks in 1957-1961 and Vostoks in 1961-1964 Korolev's OKB-1 design bureau was in the ascent and planned to move forward with the Soyuz craft and N-1 heavy booster that would be the basis of a permanent manned space station and possibly manned exploration of the moon (although due to lack of air on the Moon, as was quickly found by unmanned probes, manned flights to the Moon were not planned by soviets), but Ustinov directed him to focus on near-Earth missions using the very reliable Voskhod spacecraft, a modified Vostok, as well as on interplanetary unmanned missions to nearby planets Venus and Mars. Yangel had been Korolev's assistant but with the support of the military was given his own design bureau in 1954 to work primarily on military space program. This had the stronger rocket engine design team including the use of hypergolic fuels but following the Nedelin catastrophe in 1960 Yangle was directed to concentrate on ICBM development. He also continued to develop his own heavy booster designs similar to Korolev's N-1 both for military applications and for cargo flights into space to build future space stations.

Glushko was the chief rocket engine designer but had a personal frictions with Korolev and refused to develop the large single chamber cryogenic engines that Korolev needed to built heavy boosters. Chelomei benefited from the patronage of Kruschev and in 1960 was given the plum jobs of developing a rocket to send a manned craft around the moon and a manned military space station - but with limited experience his development was slow.

At one stage in the early 1960s the Soviet space program was actively developing 30 projects for launchers and spacecraft. With the fall of Kruschev in 1964 Korolev was given complete control of the manned space program.

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After Korolev

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Korolev died following a botched operation to remove a cancerous tumor in January 1966 and leadership of the OKB-1 design bureau was given to Vasili Mishin who had the unenviable task of sending a man around the moon in 1967 and landing a man on it in 1968. Mishin lacked Korolev's political authority and still faced competition from the other chief designers. Under pressure Mishin approved the launch of the ambitious Soyuz 1 flight in 1967 even though the craft had never been successfully tested on an un-manned flight. The mission launched with known design problems and ended a troubled flight by crashing to the ground killing Vladimir Komarov in the first in-flight fatality. Following this disaster and under new pressures Mishin developed a drinking problem. The Soviets were narrowly beaten to sending the first manned flight around the moon in 1968 by Apollo 8 and Mishin pressed ahead with the N-1 despite major design flaws in the hope that the Americans would have a set back. There was a success with the joint flight of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 in January 1969 that tested the rendezvous, docking and crew transfer techniques that would be used for the landing but the failures of the N-1 unmanned test flights meant that the US inevitably beat the Soviets to the moon.

Following this set back Chelomei convinced Ustinov to approve a crash program in 1970 to advance his Almaz military space station as a means of beating the US's announced Skylab. Mishin remained in control of the project that became Salyut but the decision backed by Mishin to fly a three man crew without pressure suits rather than a two man crew with suits to Salyut 1 in 1971 proved fatal when the re-entry capsule depressurized killing the crew on their return to earth. Mishin was removed from many projects with Chelomei regaining control of Salyut. After the experience of working with NASA on the Apollo Soyuz Test Project the Soviet leadership decided a new management approach was needed and in 1974 the N-1 was cancelled and Mishin was dismissed. A single design bureau was created NPO Energia with Glushko as Chief Designer.

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Failures

Similar to numerous failures in early and late US space program, Soviet program also suffered many incidents and set-backs.

The Soviet space program was tied to the central planning of the USSR's five year plans. This made it difficult for the Chief Designers to respond in 1961 to the US launching a crash program for a manned lunar landing as the next five year plan would not start until 1964. Centralised planning and the concentration on production targets also made it difficult for middle management and engineers to highlight defects in equipment leading to poor quality control.

The Soviet space program produced the first fatality on March 23, 1961 when Valentin Bondarenko died in a fire within a low pressure, high oxygen atmosphere.

The Voskhod program was cancelled after two manned flights due to the change of Soviet leadership and the near fatality of the second mission. Had the planned further flights gone ahead they could have given the Soviet space program further 'firsts' including a long duration flight of 20 days, a spacewalk by a woman and an untethered spacewalk.

The deaths of Korolev (heart attack), Komarov (in the Soyuz 1 crash) and Gagarin (on routine fighter jet mission) within two years of each other undestandably made some negative impact on Soviet program.

In 1964 there were three different design teams working on heavy booster design for lifting heavy cargo in space on a regular basis (for building space station), for manned mission to Mars and for military applications.

The Soviets continued striving for the first lunar mission with the huge N-1 rocket which exploded on each of four unmanned tests. Americans won the race to the moon with Apollo 11.

On March 18, 1980 a Vostok rocket exploded on its launch pad during a fueling operation killing 48 people.

The Soviet space program produced the Space Shuttle Buran based on the Energia launcher. Energia would be used as the base for a manned Mars mission. Buran was intended to operate in support of large space based military platforms as a response first to the US Space Shuttle and then the Strategic Defense Initiative. By the time the system was operational in 1988 strategic arms reduction treaties and the end of the Cold War meant that Buran was redundant. Several vehicles were built, but only one flew an unmanned test flight; it was found too expensive to operate as a civilian launcher.

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See also the complete list of space disasters.

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In-flight deaths

Four Russian cosmonauts were killed in flight as compared to 18 American astronauts killed in flight -- making the Russian manned space program more than twice as reliable as the American manned space program (3.1% Russian fatalities versus 6.5% American).

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Reliability

The Russian space program is considered to be the most reliable space program ever, and currently (as of 2006) is the only one used for flights to the International Space Station (ISS), for commercial space tourism, and for launching third-party commercial satellites (including the unique ability to launch satellites and reusable vehicles from submarines) -- all on a regular basis.

While the NASA Space Shuttle program has weathered two disasters (the loss of Challenger and Columbia) out of 114 flights (as of August 25, 2005), the Russian shuttle Buran has a perfect flight record: one unmanned flight (no life support systems were yet installed). While it was designed for manned flights, Buran was able to fly autonomously (in unmanned computer controlled mode).

Russian rocket Energia is considered by space experts to be the most powerful space rocket ever built. It can lift into orbit a payload up to 175 tons.

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