Cosmonautics was the pride of the Soviet Union. The first satellites and spaceships, the first interplanetary vehicles and orbital stations made the socialist state the undisputed leader in the exploration of extraterrestrial space.
Soviet cosmonautics enjoyed popular support. It developed systematically and at the end of the 20th century had to reach new frontiers. Unfortunately, the ambitious plans had to be mothballed - as it turned out, forever.
Orbital plant
On May 15, 1987, the newest carrier rocket Energia was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome for the first time, capable of launching a load weighing up to 105 tons into orbit. Its appearance radically changed the capabilities of Soviet cosmonautics - there was no analogue in the world after the closure of the American Saturn-Apollo program.
The creators of the rocket from the Research and Production Association (NPO) Energia understood that it was necessary to substantiate its importance for the national economy, therefore, in addition to the carrier itself, payloads were simultaneously designed for it. The rocket could launch into space either a large cargo container or the reusable Buran spacecraft, so the designers had ample opportunities to implement all sorts of initiatives: in particular, projects of solar power plants with the transfer of energy to Earth, self-accelerating capsules for sending radioactive waste beyond the borders of Solnechnaya were considered. systems, huge orbital mirrors for illuminating northern cities during the polar night, global positioning and data transmission systems, space telescopes and radio telescopes.
However, the main application of Energia was found in the project for the construction of the Mir-2 orbital complex, which was supposed to replace in 1995 the Mir station, which has been in operation since February 1986. The concept of the new complex was formulated 10 years earlier - in 1976. The base unit was DOS-7K station No. 8, which was created as a "backup" of a similar "Mira" block and could replace the main station in the event of its destruction during launch into orbit.
On December 14, 1987, the final project of Mira-2 was approved by the director of NPO Energia, Yuri Pavlovich Semyonov, and in January 1988, a mention of the new development appeared for the first time in the Soviet press. The orbital complex consisted of the Zarya base unit, an orbital dock, a farm with solar panels, a service, biotechnological and two “research” modules. Moreover, the dock and "research" modules weighed under 90 tons at launch, so it would take three launches of "Energia" to deliver them into orbit. The total mass of the complex would have amounted to about 200 tons by the end of the 20th century. Mir-2 was supposed to solve problems in the interests of both defense and the national economy. The surviving documents contain estimates of specialists in the annual production of special semiconductors (480 kilograms), silicon monocrystals (1600 kilograms),biological crystals (50 kilograms), biological medicinal products (60 kilograms), etc. In fact, the complex was supposed to combine an industrial factory for the production of unique materials, a slipway for the construction of large interplanetary ships, a scientific laboratory and a military reconnaissance outpost.
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Permanently on it were to be from nine to twelve cosmonauts delivered by the Soyuz and Buran spacecraft.
But then politics intervened. The refusal of the Soviet government from plans to create military bases in space led to the fact that in 1989 work on the Zarya block and other modules were suspended. In 1991, the management of NPO Energia put forward a lightweight version of the Mira-2 weighing 50 tons, the assembly of which would be completed in 2000.
The collapse of the USSR again forced to reconsider plans. The difficult economic situation forced the United States to seek help.
As a result, the modules of the complex, which were under construction, were brought with American funding to ready-made samples and today are part of the International Space Station.
Lunar base
New technologies made it possible to make a breakthrough to the moon. Academician Valentin Petrovich Glushko, who headed NPO Energia, initiated the LEK project (lunar expedition ship). The spacecraft was supposed to launch a huge Vulcan launch vehicle, designed on the basis of the Energia rocket and capable of lifting a cargo weighing up to 230 tons into space. Then the upper stage "Vesuvius" with oxygen-hydrogen engines was switched on, which would deliver the payload to the lunar surface.
In the early 1990s, before the expedition with the participation of cosmonauts, they were going to send research vehicles there for global photography of the Moon, compilation of morphological and geological maps. In 1996, it was planned to land on the opposite (“invisible”) side of the scientific station, which would deliver soil samples to Earth, which secured another historical priority for the USSR.
Then, in the selected area, a laboratory-living module, a rover and containers with life support supplies for a year and a half would have landed in the automatic mode. The first LEK would soon be delivered there, which consisted of an inhabited unit with three cosmonauts, a landing and return stages. The expedition to the moon was supposed to take no more than six months. After completing the program, the reentry stage, using its own engine, brought the inhabited unit onto the flight path to Earth. In the future, it was supposed to expand the lunar base at the expense of the laboratory-factory module. Surface crews would change once a year. In addition to purely scientific research, they were going to organize their own industrial production at the base using local materials.
Contrary to the expectations of scientists, the government was not enthusiastic about the new lunar program and was in no hurry to allocate money for the implementation of the plans of NPO Energia: the development of the reusable Buran spacecraft remained a priority. Nevertheless, the project was brought to the stage of sketches and showed that theoretically the entire set of the lunar base, including the LEK, laboratory modules and a lunar rover with a pressurized cabin, could be delivered to the target by only two Vulcan rockets. However, the proposed concept never became part of the state space policy.
Our city on Mars
The plans to use the Energia and Vulcan rockets were not limited to the Moon. Due to their high carrying capacity, they made it possible to send several heavy interplanetary vehicles to Mars at once.
At the first stage, approximately in 1994, scientists planned to launch two 6M research stations, each of which consisted of an orbital module (artificial satellite of Mars), a pair of balloons, six penetrators (devices for penetrating the subsurface soil layer) and two to six small landing beacon probes. After entering the orbit of the Red Planet, small spacecraft are dropped into the atmosphere, and the orbital module begins high-quality television survey of the surface, on the basis of which topographic and heat maps are compiled. A unique element of the project was the launch of balloons. Their design was conceived in such a way that at night, due to the low temperature, they spontaneously descended to the surface, and during the day, when the shell was heated by the sun's rays, they took off again. In the presence of winds, such a device could travel hundreds of kilometers in a few hours, fixing the surrounding landscapes with a miniature TV camera and transmitting detailed images to Earth through a repeater in orbit.
The second phase of the program was scheduled for 1996 and 1998. Initially, mobile planetary rovers 7M with a range of up to hundreds of kilometers were supposed to go to Mars. On the way, they carried out panoramic television shooting, studied the terrain and weather conditions. In addition, they could collect soil samples in special containers, which were then placed in the returnable 8MP module with its own engine. After filling, the module starts up, docks with the 8MS station on duty in orbit, which, in turn, "shoots" containers towards the Earth. For quarantine reasons, it was planned to intercept them in the vicinity of our planet, and study them in the laboratory module of the Mir-2 station.
The implementation of the third stage - sending astronauts to Mars - was to begin no later than 2001. Valentin Glushko and Yuri Semenov proposed their own version of the manned expedition. In their opinion, the IEC (interplanetary expeditionary ship) should consist of three main elements: a propulsion system for flight; a residential block where a crew of four to six people is located; a lander, in which the crew descends to the surface of the Red Planet and, after completing the mission, returns to the orbit of the satellite of Mars to the interplanetary spacecraft.
It was proposed to assemble the IEC in low-earth orbit from five separate parts delivered by Energia rockets. In this case, the total launch weight of the ship would be 430 tons. First of all, a Martian orbital ship (MOC) was launched into space, then a Martian landing ship (IPC) complete with a return to Earth ship (VC), tanks with a working fluid (xenon) and two identical nuclear electro-jet propulsion systems (NEPPU). The second unit was needed as a backup in case of an accident, the main one. For their work and supplying the ship with energy, the MEK planned to place a 7.5 megawatt nuclear reactor.
After docking of all units and checking the systems to the IEC, "Buran" was supposed to start with astronauts, additional equipment and a supply of food.
Then the spacecraft, with the help of its own nuclear power propulsion system, accelerates along an unwinding spiral and from the near-earth orbit goes over to the heliocentric one, crossing the orbit of Mars.
A flight to a neighboring planet would take five months, a return flight - eight months, work near Mars - two months, on the surface - from five days to a month, depending on how successfully the launch "fits" into the astronomical "window" the position of the planets. A year and a half later, only a small VC, modeled on the Soyuz descent vehicle, returned to Earth.
In 1988, it became clear that a powerful nuclear reactor for MEK was unlikely to be built in the foreseeable future, so the designers proposed to equip the ship with film solar panels and reduce its mass to 355 tons. At the same time, the number of crew members was reduced to four; but a greenhouse appeared in the ship. The scheme of the expedition also demanded improvements - now it was supposed to last 716 days, five of which the cosmonauts would spend on the Martian surface, collecting soil samples and trying to find microorganic life. The expedition project would take at least 10 years to complete.
The difficult economic situation in which the Soviet Union found itself at the end of its existence forced the developers to moderate their "appetites". Specialists from other countries were involved in the research program of the Red Planet. Ultimately, the first stage, which involved sending the unmanned vehicle, turned into the simpler Mars-96 project. The launch of the device took place on November 16, 1986, but due to a failure in the upper stage, it did not enter the interplanetary trajectory and sank in the Pacific Ocean. The next project to create an M1M interplanetary station with a rover was frozen, and some of the materials were transferred to the Americans, who successfully used ready-made technologies to create their Sojourner rover.
Unfortunately, without powerful rockets and proper funding, all these projects remained on paper, and today Russian science is almost not engaged in direct research of the solar system.
Give Mercury
In addition to the Martian expedition, Soviet scientists were going to send a rover to Mercury, launch balloons into the atmosphere of Venus, send a large research apparatus to Jupiter and a probe into the Sun's corona.
Anton PERVUSHIN