Soviet rocketry
[2][3] Tikhomirov had commenced studying solid and Liquid-fueled rockets in 1894, and in 1915 he lodged a patent for "self-propelled aerial and water-surface mines.
[5] In the same year, as part of the attempted annexation of Finland, in the Winter War, PC-132 rockets were fired, from Tupolev SB bombers, against Finnish ground targets.
[13][14] This early work by GDL has been steadily carried on and electric rocket engines were used in the 1960s on board the Voskhod 1 spacecraft and Zond-2 probe.
[11] As a result of experiments, by the end of 1933, a high-boiling fuel from kerosene and nitric acid was selected as the most convenient in operation and industrial production.
[11] A total of 100 bench tests of liquid-propellant rockets were conducted using various types of fuel, both low and high-boiling and thrust up to 300 kg was achieved.
[20] Mikhail Klavdievich Tikhonravov, who would later supervise the design of Sputnik I and the Luna programme, headed GIRD's 2nd Brigade, was responsible for the first Soviet liquid propelled rocket launch, the GIRD-9, on 17 August 1933, which reached an altitude of 400 metres (1,300 ft).
[1] In order to obtain maximum military benefits, the Red Army's chief-of-staff Marshal Mikhail Tukhacheskii merged GIRD with the GDL to study both fuel types.
Korolev teamed up with propulsion engineer Valentin Glushko, and together they excelled in the rocket industry, pushing the Soviet Union ahead of the United States in the space race.
Bitter in-fighting slowed the pace and quality of the research at RNII, but despite internal dissention, Korolev began to produce designs of missiles with liquid fueled engines.
The plan for the RP-218 called for a two-seat rocket powered plane, complete with a pressurized cabin, a retractable undercarriage, and equipment for high altitude research.
[25] The rear seat was replaced with tanks holding kerosene and nitric acid, and the OR-2 rocket motor was installed in the fuselage.
These research endeavors were receiving more attention and funding as Europe began its escalation into the chaos of World War II.
The Soviet rocket program had developed engines with two-stage ignition and variable thrust nearly two years before Germany rolled out their Me 163.
[33] On July 14, 1941, an experimental artillery battery of seven launchers was first used in battle at Rudnya in Smolensk Oblast of Russia, under the command of Captain Ivan Flyorov, destroying a concentration of German troops with tanks, armored vehicles and trucks at the marketplace, causing massive German Army casualties and its retreat from the town in panic,[34] see also in articles by a Russian military historian Andrey Sapronov,[35][36] an eyewitness of the maiden launches.
[37] On August 8, 1941, Stalin ordered the formation of eight special Guards mortar regiments under the direct control of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK).
[39] The German invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941 led to an acute sense of urgency for the Soviets to develop practical rocket-powered aircraft.
[18] The Russians needed a superior weapon to counter the German air forces, and they looked to rocket-powered interceptor craft as the solution to their dilemma.
These actuators, in effect the equivalent of power steering in a car, greatly reduced amount of force the pilots had to apply to control the plane.
Because of the ongoing war with Germany, Russian officials strove to make the Kostikov aircraft a functional military asset as quickly as possible.
Under the supervision of the Special technical Commission (OTK) established by the Soviet Union to oversee rocketry operations in Germany, A-4s were assembled and studied.
Remedial improvements along with experimental design upgrades were made in 1949, with a second series of twenty tests starting in September and October.
[54] Korolev proposed commencement of the R-2 project in January 1947, but it was declined by the Soviet government, which favored development of the more technologically conservative R-1.
None of the 12 flights in this series fulfilled their primary objectives due to engine failures, warhead trajectory errors, and malfunctions with the guidance systems.
[57] In the spring of 1951 Korolev revised his A-3 plans to use the RD-103 engine, an evolution of the RD-101 used in the R-2 missile, and reduce the weight of the rocket through use of integrated tankage (while at the same time increasing propellant load by 60% over the R-2).
Other innovations over the R-1/R-2 included small aerodynamic rudders run by servomotors to replace the big fins of the R-1/R-2, and longitudinal acceleration integrators to improve the precision of engine cutoff and thus accuracy.
[71] The R-5M entered service in March 1956, was deployed along the western and eastern Russian borders, and in 1959 was installed in East Germany, the first Soviet nuclear missile bases outside the USSR.
[74][75] The principle of a staged missile, also known as a “rocket packet”, was first proposed by Mikhail Tikhonravov, which was supported by Korolev and expanded by Dmitry Okhotsimsky, which concluded that a core and four strap on boosters as the preferred model, which the R-7 used.
The solution was to eliminate the pad and to suspend the entire rocket in the trusses that bear both vertical weight load as well as horizontal wind forces.
A guidance system malfunction pointed the capsule in the wrong direction for the orbit-exiting engine burn, sending it instead into a higher orbit, which decayed approximately four months later.
[92] December 8, 1957 the Soviet Union head of the Academy of Science addressed the United States in regard to the first artificial satellite that was sent off on October 4, 1957.
