History of rocket space technology:

achievements and lessons for the future

XXXIV Academic Conference on Astronautics

Section “History of rocket space technology”

A.A.Gafarov

FSUE “Keldysh Research Center”

Russia

Studies into the history of rocket space technology are of not only cognitive interest, but, in a number of cases, result in a good basis for development of products of next-generation rocketry. This was fully confirmed by reviews of sessions of the section “A history of rocket space technology”, that were held on January 26-29, 2010 in Moscow in the context of the XXXIV Academic Conference on Astronautics in commemoration of Academician S.P.Korolev and other prominent native scientists – pioneers in space exploration.

In the Session Program the following lectures were included (in accordance with submitted papers:

I.Ye.Vlasov, Russian Aircraft-Production Corporation “MiG”. The Trailblazer of Space era (in commemoration of Ya.Ya. Sirobaba).

Yu.V.Biryukov, a Veteran of S.P.Korolev Rocket Space Corporation “Energia”. Ideas by K.Ye.Tsiolkovskiy towards aviation progress and their influence on works of GIRD and RNII (to the 80^th anniversary of publication of the book “Reactive  airplane”).

A.A.Gafarov, Keldysh Research Center. The first step along the human path in space (to the 70^th  anniversary of the flight of the rocket glider РП-318-1).

M.I.Malenkov, All-Russian Research Institute “VNII Transmash”. It is 40 years since the first rut at the Moon`s surface.

V.G.Dovgan, Council of Veterans of Space Forces; M.I.Malenkov, All-Russian Research Institute “VNII Transmash”. From the first lunar off-roader to extra-terrestrial transport (to the 40^th  Anniversary of the start of operation of the mobile research laboratory “Lunokhod-1”).

V.N.Branets, a Veteran of the S.P.Korolev Rocket Space Corporation “Energia”. A history of one docking (“Sojuz T-13” – “Salyut-7”).

F.P.Sanin, O.A.Chaplits, Design Bureau “Yuzhnoe”. The Project “ARIABHATA-BHASKARA” (to the 35^th  Anniversary of the ARIABHATA spacecraft launch).

V.L.Sedykh, Ye.A.Stepanov, Design Bureau “Arsenal”. On the creation of the world’s first mobile operational missile-weapon 15П696 of strategically purpose with the solid-propellant rocket PT-15 (8K96) (to the 40^th anniversary of putting into experimental operation).

V.L.Sedykh, Ye.A.Stepanov, V.I.Sapozhnikov, Design Bureau “Arsenal”. On the creation of the country’s first missile-weapon complex Д-11 for submarines with the solid-propellant rocket P-31 (3M-17) of strategically purpose (to the 30^th anniversary of putting into experimental operation).

Ye.V.Kuleshov, Scientific-Production Association “NPO Mashinostroyeniya”. New documents on the start of long-range rocket technology in 1944-1945 in the USSR.

V.I.Boyko, Polytechnic Museum. The activity of the aviation and cosmonautics section of the Polytechnic Museum on popularization of scientific and historical knowledge pertaining to cosmonautics.

S.V.Gurov, State Scientific-Production Enterprise “Splav”. Perquisites of development and progress of reaction artillery in Russia at the period of the Great Patriotic war.

B.P.Filimonov, A.B.Filimonov, Scientific-Production Association “NPO Mashinostroyeniya”. K.E.Tsiolkovsky and Yu.V.Kondratyuk.

B.L.Belov, S.I.Vavilov Institute on Natural Science and Engineering History of RAS. On the V.P.Vetchinkin`s activity (1888-1950) in the field of rocket technology.

Yu.A.Khakhanov, a Veteran of All-Russian Research Institute “VNII Transmash”. The world’s first laboratory for running trials of the self-propelling chassis of “Lunokhod-1” and “Lunokhod-2”. The history of the creation and testing.

V.N.Kupriyanov, the North-West Interregional Public Organization – Astronautics Federation of Russia. Workshops in commemoration of A.L.Kemurdzhian – the founder of space-transport mechanical industry.

M.D.Yevtif`ev, Siberian State Aerospace University named after Academician M.F.Reshetnev. The application of research results on a history of development of long-range ballistic missiles and launchers of the spacecraft in the process of their designing at the initial stages.

A.A.Demin, S.I.Vavilov Institute of Natural Science and Engineeering History of RAS. Development stages of strategically laser weapon in USA on the Star wars program of since the  early eighties (political and economical constituent).

Stephen Garber, a NASA historian. A History of the Development of the Vision for Space Exploration.

The sessions involved representatives of such organizations and enterprises as:

S.P.Korolev Rocket Space Corporation “Energia”; M.V.Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre; Design Bureau “Arsenal”; Scientific-Production Association” NPO Mashinostroeniya”; State Design Bureau  “Yuzhnoe”; Russian Aircraft-Production Corporation “MiG”; All-Russian Research Institute “VNII Transmash”; Keldysh Research Center;  M.V.Keldysh Institute on Applied  Mathematics of RAS; S.I.Vavilov Institute of Natural Science and Engineering History of RAS; Organization “Council of Veterans of Space Forces”; Polytechnic Museum; F.A.Tsander Museum of Astronautics history; Moscow Physics and Technology Institute; Research Institute for Thermal Processes; as well as veterans of rocket space industry and Armed Forces, students of Bauman MSTU.

At a period between the XXXIII and XXXIV Conferences, one of leaders of the section “A history of rocket space technology”, Ya.Ya.Sirobaba, passed away. The lecture by I.Ye.Vlasov highlighted in at great length the life and creative way of one of rocket space technology pioneers in our country, of the colonel, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, USSR state prize laureate, honored founder of space engineering, the honorary radioman of the USSR, the honorary Academician of K.E.Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Astronautics, Deputy Chief of the Centre of Instrumentation-control complex in tests and scientific work, Yakov Yakovlevich Sirobaba. A honorary member of the Astronautics Federation of Russia, Ya.Ya.Sirobaba made a great contribution to elaboration of a concept of the scientific-historical work “A history of home cosmonautics”. He was the organization and methodical leader and one of key authors of a military-scientific work dedicated to the history of the Instrumentation-control complex, whose first volume was published in the lifetime of Ya.Ya.Sirobaba.

The lectures by Yu.V.Biryukov and A.A.Gafarov formed a peculiar link. The first lecture retraced an evolution of K.E.Tsiolkovsky’s ideas from general principles of a rocket flight to their stage-by-stage realization, with using a reactive aeroplane at the initial space flight phase for the ground take off and escape of the atmospheric limits. Along with other early works on this subject by Tsiolkovsky, this work had a determining effect on the Korolev`s choice of practical steps on the way to space. Already in 1931-1933, he together with F.A.Tsander, attempted to develop a rocket glider РП-1. In 1936 at the RNII S.P.Korolev begins with a development of the first rocket aeroplane РП-318, and he concentrates soon upon a creation of its simplest prototype – a glider with liquid rocket engine, having gone down in history as the rocket glider РП-318-1. The first flight of the rocket glider took place on February 28, 1940. This was the first flight of man on an aircraft with rocket engine that by right may be called the first step to space flight of man that was performed by Yu.A. Gagarin with the aid of the spacecraft and the launcher made under the leadership of S.P.Korolev.

A variety of lectures was dedicated to the important event in a history of the native and the world cosmonautics – to the 40^th anniversary of the start of operation of the mobile scientific laboratory – “Lunokhod-1”.  The lectures had to do at great length with a history of the creation of “Lunokhod-1”, from the origin of the idea and the beginning of its development at the S.P.Korolev EDB up to its practical realization at the G.N.Babakin EDB. Particular emphasis was placed on a development of the most important and complicated component of the “Lunokhod” – the self-propelling chassis, that was being made at the now well-known “VNII Transmash” under the leadership of A.L.Kemurdzhian. The lectures of representatives of the enterprise contained in great detail a history of the development and tests of the self-propelling chassis. These works resulted in forming the fundamental scientific essentials for solving future problems in a creation of new mobile (rover) modules and their operation on other planets.

One of the drivers of “Lunokhods”, V.G.Dovgan told about a telecontrol method and results of its realization in the course of operating the “Lunokhod-1”, then “Lunokhod-2” too. Particular interest was attracted by a film of up-to-date developments of mobile vehicles for mastering of not only Moon, but Mars as well.

A lot of questions and a lively discussion were aroused by the V.N.Branets lecture that was dedicated to a history of the preparation and technical solutions, owing to which a docking of the transport vehicle (TV) “Soyuz T-13” with the orbital station “Salyut-7”, having met with a serious accident, was performed. As a result of this failure the station became “uncooperative”, thus the docking was unique in the practice of home cosmonautics. This event was preceded by an unsuccessful attempt of the docking of the spacecraft “Soyuz T-8” and the orbital station “Salyut-7”. After the orbit insertion of the TV, a complete failure of the rendezvous equipment “Igla” was discovered. An unadjustable prediction of orbital motion brought the TV to a “virtual” station, spaced about 4 km apart. The attempt to conduct an approach manually was crowned with no success. This failure, the first in a history of flights of TV “Soyuz T”, made it perform a serious analysis and search of a possibility to decrease an error of the TV motion prediction, of a more correct “matching” of automatic and manual control modes. As a result, with a direct participation of the lecture’s author, a method for correction for “a miss in phase” was developed with using visual observations of the station location with a pilot’s docking sight and appropriate software of onboard digital computer. Realization of the method made it possible to perform the docking in more complicated conditions of the station “Salyut-7” “uncooperativeness”.

Interesting supplements to the above lecture were presented by pilot-cosmonaut A.A.Serebrov, who was in space four times and took part in the flight of the already mentioned TV “Soyuz T-8” as a cosmonaut-researcher. The experience in the approach of this TV with the station “Salyut-7” helped in finding technical solutions for the successful docking of the TV “Soyuz T-13” with this station.

The lecture by O.A.Chaplits, the representative of M.K.Yangel DB “Yuzhnoe” (the Ukraine), highlighted the successful Soviet-Indian collaboration, that took place in the content of the “Intercosmos” program and played an important part in the life of both parties. An agreement of the collaboration between the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and India Space Research Organization (ISRO) was signed on May 10, 1972. It provided for training of Indian specialists and rendering the Indian party consultative and engineering assistance in a creation of a scientific spacecraft, in ensuring its launch with the Soviet launch vehicle from the USSR territory. The DB “Yuzhnoe” was entrusted with practical realization of the agreement.

The launch of the first Indian spacecraft “Ariabhata” took place on April 19, 1975, then ensued successful launches of the spacecraft “Bhaskara” (June 7, 1979) and “Bhaskara-2” (October 20, 1981). The successful creation and the launch of the Indian spacecraft favored the development and the formation of the national space program of India. The fruitful collaboration in the course of these activities is a good base for the current stage of the two countries co-operation in the field of space.

The two lectures, presented in the conference by the St. Petersburg DB “Arsenal”, that last year marked the 60^th anniversary of its foundation, were an evolution of the subject of an enterprise’s contribution to a creation and progress of the solid-propellant rocket production, whose start was made by a lecture on the previous conference. The world’s first mobile missile-weapon  complex 15П696 of strategically purpose with the solid-propellant medium-range ballistic missile PT-15 (8K96) was developed by DB ”Arsenal”  on a basis of the concept of an application of solid-propellant rockets, substantiated in EDB-1 (the chief designer – S.P.Korolev).  The complex 15П696, based on a large-weight tank with a missile P-15, possessed new properties: it ensured the autonomous alert, the automated pre-launch procedure and a salvo launch of 6 missiles with a subsequent prompt redeployment to a new combat position, requiring no special pre-launch procedure. In 1970 the complex was put into experimental operation that allowed an improvement of many engineering systems and a speed-up of the creation of land-based mobile combat missile complexes of next generation.

The DB “Arsenal” is an initiator of development in our country of solid propellant combat missiles for submarines. In 2010 30 years  have passed since the time the DB “Arsenal” put the country’s first missile weapon complex Д-11 of strategically purpose for submarines with a solid-propellant ballistic missile P-31 (3M-17) into experimental operation of  Naval Forces.  This complex opened a new era of armament of the native submarine fleet.  An experience in its exploitation, engineering ideas and crucial solutions, set forth at great length, in the lecture were used in development of solid-propellant combat missiles of new generation for the submarine fleet of Russia.

As long ago as in the Academic conference in 2005, Ye.V.Kuleshov presented a lecture on a document “The report to I.V.Stalin on the work of the Commission on studying the German station of rocket projectiles located in the Dembiz region”. This is the document concerning the first acquaintance in August 1944 of Soviet specialists – scientific workers of NII-1 (the former RNII) at the head of its chief P.I.Fedorov – with the German rocketry: projectiles V-1 and V-2. This first trip became a point from which the start of works on long-range rockets in our country was reckoned. Results of subsequent ceaseless searches and investigations on this question were regularly reported by Ye.V.Kuleshov to Academic conferences. In the last conference were presented documents refining the membership of first trips of Soviet specialists for the search of and collection of German rocketry, including that tragic trip on February 7, 1945. The report had also to do with a new document of September 14, 1944 “The plan for the study of a special unit delivered to NII-1”. A totality of materials, gathered by Ye.V.Kuleshov, is a good basis for a generalizing work on the origin of works on the long-range rocketry in our country.

One more example of a consecutive evolution of a certain research avenue is a series of lectures by M.D.Yeftif`ev.  In his lectures of previous Academic conferences (XXXI, XXXII and XXXIII), he considered a history of progress and change of characteristics of ballistic missiles of submarines, ground-based ballistic missiles and launchers of the spacecraft, respectively. A lecture, generalizing all previous researches and using their results for a possible work at initial stages of designing new products, was proposed for is conference. With using results of investigations into the history of progress of long-range ballistic missiles and launchers of the spacecraft, the author performed calculations and constructed graphs, illustrating the tendencies for the evolution of main performance characteristics of these products for all countries engaged in this kind of technology. For determination of the engineering level of the whole aggregate of rockets in hand, a united complex index is proposed. It includes such  parameters  as  the  payload mass, the range (for launchers – the constant insertion altitude 200 km), the rocket launching mass, the probable circular deviation (for launchers – an accuracy of orbit insertion), technical reliability of rocket.

The lecture by an employer of the Polytechnic museum, V.I.Boyko, dealt with a role of one of the biggest technology museums in our country in the propaganda of scientific and historical know-ledge associated with cosmonautics. The Museum possesses a rich collection of the exhibit illustrating historical landmarks of home cosmonautics progress. Here are displayed originals, as well as copies of a number of rocket space technology products. These exhibits, being indicative of engineering advancement’s in the field of cosmonautics, attract great interest among visitors. But the most effective contribution to popularization of knowledge is excursion activity, when visitors are gaining a detailed notion about space flights, space researches and space industry, about the prospects of cosmonautics and its important role in evolution of our civilization.

In 2010 our country was marking the 65^th Anniversary of its Victory in the Great Patriotic war. One of symbols of the Victory weapon is believed by right to be the world’s first combat machine of reactive artillery БМ-13 that in the war years got its informal name “Katyusha”, inseparable from it at a later time. “Katyusha” was the first ground-based missile weapon. It became a foremother of  not only widely well-know modern salvo-fire reactive systems (SFRS) “Grad”, “Uragan”, “Smerch”, but also intercontinental ballistic missiles of ground- and  submarine  basing. A scientific worker of an enterprise, where the up-to-date SFRS are being made, S.V.Gurov, narrated about works on the designing of jet artillery in our country on the eve of and at a period of the Great Patriotic war. Materials of his lecture are mainly based on results of the author’s archives search. The Gurov`s speech aroused considerable interest among participants of the session and, at the same time, lively disputes bound up with the author’s position as to some historical facts and events.

The next, 2011^th year, will be a portentous year for not only native, but also the world cosmonautics. It will be 50 years since the first space flight of the man, our compatriot Yu.A.Gagarin, took place. In the centre of attention of the section “A history of rocket space technology” in the coming Academic conference, will be undoubtedly engineering achievements that could have ensured the implementation of this epochal event in human history.