What to tell your child about Cosmonautics Day

The conquest of space is one of those pages in the history of our country that we can be unconditionally proud of. It's never too early to tell your child about it - even if your child is only two years old, you can already do with him to “fly away to the stars” and explain that the first cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin. But an older child certainly needs a more interesting story. If you managed to forget the details of the history of the first flight, a selection of facts made by us will help you.

About the first flight

The Vostok spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961 at 9.07 am Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome, with the pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board; Gagarin's call sign is "Cedar".

The flight of Yuri Gagarin lasted 108 minutes, his ship completed one revolution around the Earth and completed the flight at 10:55. The ship moved at a speed of 28 260 km / h at a maximum altitude of 327 km.

About Gagarin's task

Nobody knew how a person would behave in space; there were serious fears that once outside the home planet, the astronaut would go crazy with horror.

Therefore, the tasks given to Gagarin were the simplest: he tried to eat and drink in space, made several notes in pencil, and pronounced all his observations out loud so that they would be recorded on the onboard tape recorder. From these same fears of sudden insanity was foreseen a complex system transferring the spacecraft to manual control: the astronaut had to open the envelope and manually enter the code left there on the remote control.

About "Vostok"

We are accustomed to the form of a rocket - a grandiose elongated arrow-shaped structure, but these are all detachable stages that "fell off" after all the fuel in them was depleted.

A capsule, shaped like a cannonball, with a third stage of the engine, flew into orbit.

The total mass of the spacecraft reached 4.73 tons, the length (without antennas) was 4.4 m, and the diameter was 2.43 m.The weight of the spacecraft together with the last stage of the launch vehicle was 6.17 tons, and their length in a bundle - 7.35 m

Rocket launch and Vostok spacecraft model

Soviet designers were in a hurry: there was information that the Americans planned to launch the manned spacecraft at the end of April. Therefore, it should be admitted that Vostok-1 was neither reliable nor comfortable.

When developing it, they first abandoned the emergency rescue system at the start, then - from the soft landing system of the ship - the descent took place along a ballistic trajectory, as if the capsule-"core" had actually been fired from a cannon. Such a landing occurs with huge overloads - the astronaut is affected by gravity 8-10 times more than we feel on Earth, and Gagarin felt as if he weighed 10 times more!

Finally, the duplicate brake system was abandoned. The latter decision was justified by the fact that when the spacecraft was launched into a low 180-200 km orbit, in any case within 10 days it would have left it due to natural deceleration on the upper atmosphere and would return to earth. It was for these 10 days that the life support systems were calculated.

Problems of the first space flight

For a long time they did not talk about the problems that arose during the launch of the first spacecraft, these data were published quite recently.

The first of them arose even before the start: when checking the tightness, the sensor on the hatch through which Gagarin entered the capsule did not give out a signal of tightness. Since there was very little time left before the start, such a problem could lead to a postponement of the launch.

Then the leading designer of "Vostok-1" Oleg Ivanovskiy with the workers demonstrated fantastic skills, to the envy of the current mechanics of "Formula-1". In a matter of minutes, 30 nuts were unscrewed, the sensor was checked and corrected, and the hatch was closed again in the prescribed manner. This time, the tightness test was successful, and the start was carried out at the scheduled time.

At the final stage of the start, the radio control system did not work, which was supposed to turn off the engines of the 3rd stage. The engine was turned off only after the backup mechanism (timer) was triggered, but the spacecraft had already ascended into orbit, the highest point of which (apogee) was 100 km higher than the calculated one.

Departure from such an orbit with the help of "aerodynamic braking" (if the same, non-duplicated brake system failed) could take, according to various estimates, from 20 to 50 days, and not 10 days for which the life support system was designed.

However, the MCC was ready for this scenario: all the country's air defenses were warned about the flight (without details that the cosmonaut was on board), so that Gagarin was "tracked" in a matter of seconds. Moreover, an appeal to the peoples of the world was prepared in advance, with a request to find the first Soviet cosmonaut if the landing happened overseas. In general, three such messages were prepared - the second about the tragic death of Gagarin, and the third, which was published, about his successful flight.

During landing, the braking propulsion system worked successfully, but with a shortage of momentum, so that the automation issued a ban on the regular separation of the compartments. As a result, instead of a spherical capsule, the entire ship entered the stratosphere, together with the third stage.

Due to the irregular geometric shape, for 10 minutes before entering the atmosphere, the ship tumbled randomly at a speed of 1 revolution per second. Gagarin decided not to frighten the flight directors (first of all, Korolev) and, in conventional terms, reported an emergency on board the ship.

When the ship entered the denser layers of the atmosphere, the connecting cables burned out, and the command to separate the compartments came from the thermal sensors, so that the lander finally separated from the instrument-engine compartment.

If the trained Gagarin was ready for 8-10-fold overloads (they still remember the shots with a centrifuge from the Flight Training Center!) ) - No. Streams of liquid metal flowed through two windows (one of which was located on the entrance hatch, just above the astronaut's head, and the other, equipped with a special orientation system, in the floor at his feet), and the cabin itself began to crackle.

The descent vehicle of the Vostok spacecraft at the RSC Energia museum. The cover, separated at an altitude of 7 kilometers, fell to the Earth separately, without a parachute.

Due to a small failure in the braking system, the descent vehicle with Gagarin landed not in the planned area 110 km from Stalingrad, but in the Saratov region, not far from the city of Engels near the village of Smelovka.

Gagarin ejected from the capsule of the ship at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. At the same time, he was practically carried right into the cold waters of the Volga - only huge experience and composure helped him, controlling the lines of the parachute, to land on land.

The first people who met the cosmonaut after the flight were the wife of the local forester Anna Takhtarova and her six-year-old granddaughter Rita. Soon the military and local collective farmers arrived at the scene. One group of military men took the descent vehicle under protection, and the other took Gagarin to the location of the unit. From there, Gagarin reported by phone to the commander of the air defense division: “I ask you to tell the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force: I completed the task, landed in the specified area, I feel good, there are no bruises or breakdowns. Gagarin ".

For about three years, the leadership of the USSR hid two facts from the world community: firstly, although Gagarin could control the spacecraft (by opening the envelope with the code), in fact, the entire flight took place in automatic mode. And the second is the very fact of Gagarin's ejection, since the fact that he landed separately from the spacecraft gave the International Aeronautical Federation a reason to refuse to recognize Gagarin's flight as the first manned space flight.

What Gagarin said

Everyone knows that before the start Gagarin said the famous "Let's go!" But why did they "go"? Today, those who worked and trained side by side recall that this word was the favorite sentence of the famous test pilot Mark Gallay. He was one of those who prepared six candidates for the first flight into space and during training asked: “Ready to fly? Well then, come on. Go!"

It's funny that only recently a recording of pre-flight conversations between Korolev and Gagarin, already sitting in a spacesuit, in the cockpit, was published. And not surprisingly, there was nothing pretentious, Korolev, with the solicitude of a loving grandmother, warned Gagarin that he would not have to starve during the flight - he had more than 60 tubes of food, he had everything, even jam.

And it is very rare to mention the phrase said on the air by Gagarin during landing, when the window was flooded with fire and molten metal: "I'm on fire, goodbye, comrades".

But for us, perhaps the most important will remain the phrase said by Gagarin after landing:

“Having flown around the Earth in a satellite ship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, we will preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it. "

Prepared by Alena Novikova

"First Orbit" is a documentary film by the English director Christopher Riley, filmed for the 50th anniversary of the Gagarin flight. The essence of the project is simple: the cosmonauts photographed the Earth from the ISS at the moment when the station was repeating Gagarin's orbit as accurately as possible. The video was overlaid with the full original recording of the Kedra's negotiations with Zarya and other ground services, music by the composer Philip Sheppard was added and moderately spiced up with solemn messages from radio announcers. And here is the result: now everyone can see, hear and try to feel what it was like. How (almost in real time) the miracle of the first manned flight into space, which shook the whole world, took place.

The birth of the "Union"

The first manned spacecraft-satellites of the Vostok series (index 3KA) were created to solve a narrow range of tasks - firstly, to get ahead of the Americans, and, secondly, to determine the possibilities of life and work in space, to study the physiological reactions of humans to the factors of orbital flight. The ship coped with the assigned tasks brilliantly. With its help, the first human breakthrough into space ("Vostok") was carried out, the world's first daily orbital mission ("Vostok-2"), as well as the first group flights of manned vehicles ("Vostok-3" - "Vostok-4" and "Vostok-5" - "Vostok-6"). The first woman entered space also on this ship (Vostok-6).

The development of this direction was the spacecraft with the indices 3KV and 3KD, with the help of which the first orbital flight of a crew of three cosmonauts ("Voskhod") and the first manned flight into open space ("Voskhod-2") were carried out.

However, even before all these records were set, it was clear to the managers, designers and designers of the Korolev Experimental Design Bureau (OKB-1) that not the Vostok would be better suited for solving promising tasks, but another ship, more advanced and safer. with advanced capabilities, increased resource of systems, convenient for work and comfortable for the life of the crew, providing more gentle descent modes and greater accuracy of landing. To increase the scientific and applied "efficiency" it was necessary to increase the number of the crew by introducing narrow specialists into it - doctors, engineers, scientists. In addition, already at the turn of the 1950s-1960s, it was obvious to the creators of space technology that in order to further study outer space, it was necessary to master the technologies of meeting and docking in orbit for assembling stations and interplanetary complexes.

In the summer of 1959, OKB-1 began searching for the appearance of a promising manned spacecraft. After discussing the goals and objectives of the new product, it was decided to develop a sufficiently versatile apparatus suitable for both near-earth flights and lunar flyby missions. In 1962, within the framework of these surveys, a project was initiated, which received the cumbersome name "Complex for assembling spacecraft in the orbit of an Earth satellite" and the short code "Soyuz". The main task of the project, during the solution of which it was supposed to master the orbital assembly, was a flyby of the moon. The manned element of the complex, which had the index 7K-9K-11K, was named "ship" and its own name "Soyuz".

Its fundamental difference from its predecessors was the ability to dock with other vehicles of the 7K-9K-11K complex, fly over long distances (up to the orbit of the moon), enter the Earth's atmosphere at a second space velocity and land in a given area of ​​the territory of the Soviet Union. Distinctive feature"Union" became the layout. It consisted of three compartments: a household (BO), an instrument-aggregate (PAO) and a descent vehicle (SA). This solution made it possible to provide an acceptable habitable volume for a crew of two or three people without a significant increase in the mass of the ship's structure. The fact is that the Vostok and Voskhod descent vehicles, covered with a layer of thermal protection, contained systems necessary not only for descent, but also for the entire orbital flight. By taking them out to other compartments that did not have heavy thermal protection, the designers could significantly reduce the total volume and mass of the descent vehicle, which means that they could significantly lighten the entire ship.

It must be said that according to the principles of partitioning into compartments, the Soyuz differed little from its overseas competitors - the ships Gemini and Apollo. However, the Americans, who have a great advantage in the field of microelectronics with a high resource, managed to create relatively compact devices without dividing the living space into independent compartments.

Due to the symmetrical flow around, when returning from space, the spherical descent vehicles Vostokov and Voskhod could only perform uncontrolled ballistic descent with sufficiently large G-forces and low accuracy. The experience of the first flights showed that when landing, these ships could deviate from a given point by hundreds of kilometers, which significantly hampered the work of specialists in the search and evacuation of cosmonauts, dramatically increasing the contingent of forces and resources involved in solving this problem, often forcing them to scatter over a vast territory ... For example, Voskhod-2 landed with a significant deviation from the design point in such a hard-to-reach place that the search engines were able to evacuate the ship's crew only on the third (!) Day.

The Soyuz descent vehicle acquired the segment-conical shape of a “headlight” and, when choosing a certain alignment, flew in the atmosphere with a balancing angle of attack. Asymmetrical flow generated lift and gave the vehicle "aerodynamic quality". This term defines the ratio of lift to drag in the flow coordinate system at a given angle of attack. For the Soyuz it did not exceed 0.3, but this was enough to increase the landing accuracy by an order of magnitude (from 300-400 km to 5-10 km) and halve the second (from 8-10 to 3-5 units) to reduce the overload while descending, making the landing much more comfortable.

The "Spacecraft Assembly Complex in the Earth Satellite Orbit" was not implemented in its original form, but became the ancestor of numerous projects. The first was 7K-L1 (known under the open name "Probe"). In 1967-1970, under this program, 14 attempts were made to launch unmanned analogs of this manned spacecraft, 13 of which were aimed at circling the moon. Alas, for various reasons, only three can be considered successful. It did not come to manned missions: after the Americans flew around the moon and landed on the lunar surface, the country's leadership's interest in the project faded away, and 7K-L1 was closed.

The lunar orbiter 7K-LOK was part of the manned lunar complex N-1 - L-3. In the period from 1969 to 1972, the Soviet super-heavy rocket N-1 was launched four times, and each time with an emergency. The only "almost regular" 7K-LOK died in an accident on November 23, 1972 in the last launch of the carrier. In 1974, the project of the Soviet expedition to the moon was stopped, and in 1976 it was finally canceled.

For various reasons, both the "lunar" and "orbital" branches of the 7K-9K-11K project did not take root, but the family of manned spacecraft for conducting "training" operations for meeting and docking in near-earth orbit took place and was developed. It spun off from the Soyuz theme in 1964, when it was decided to work out the assembly not in lunar, but in near-earth flights. This is how 7K-OK appeared, which inherited the name "Soyuz". The main and auxiliary tasks of the initial program (controlled descent in the atmosphere, docking in near-earth orbit in unmanned and manned versions, the transition of cosmonauts from spacecraft to spacecraft, the first they were held in a manned version, under the "generic" name) until the summer of 1970.

⇡ Task optimization

At the very beginning of the 1970s, the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Mechanical Engineering (TsKBEM, since 1966 became known as OKB-1) based on the systems of the 7K-OK spacecraft and the hull of the orbital manned station OPS Almaz, designed at OKB-52 V.N Chelomeya, has developed a long-term orbital station DOS-7K ("Salyut"). The beginning of the operation of this system made the autonomous flights of ships meaningless. Space stations provided a much larger volume of valuable results due to the longer work of astronauts in orbit and the availability of space for the installation of various complex research equipment. Accordingly, the ship delivering the crew to the station and returning it to Earth turned from a multi-purpose into a single-purpose transport one. This task was assigned to the manned vehicles of the 7K-T series, created on the basis of the Soyuz.

Two disasters of ships based on 7K-OK, which occurred in a relatively short period of time (Soyuz-1 on April 24, 1967 and Soyuz-11 on June 30, 1971), forced the developers to revise the safety concept of the devices of this series and to modernize a number of major systems, which negatively affected the capabilities of the ships (the autonomous flight period was sharply reduced, the crew was reduced from three to two cosmonauts, who were now flying on critical sections of the trajectory wearing emergency rescue suits).

The operation of transport ships of the 7K-T type during the delivery of cosmonauts to the orbital stations of the first and second generation continued, but revealed a number of major shortcomings caused by the imperfection of the Soyuz service systems. In particular, the control of the ship's orbital movement was too "tied" to the ground infrastructure for tracking, control and issuing commands, and the algorithms used were not insured against errors. Since the USSR did not have the opportunity to place ground communication points over the entire surface the globe along the route, the flight of spacecraft and orbital stations took place for a significant part of the time outside the radio visibility zone. Often, the crew could not fend off abnormal situations arising on the "blind" part of the loop, and the "man-machine" interfaces were so imperfect that they did not allow the astronaut to fully use the capabilities. The fuel supply for maneuvering was found to be insufficient, often preventing repeated docking attempts, for example, when difficulties arose during the approach to the station. In many cases, this led to the disruption of the entire flight program.

To explain how the developers managed to cope with the solution of this and a number of other problems, it is necessary to step back a little in time. Inspired by the successes of the lead OKB-1 in the field of manned flights, the Kuibyshev branch of the enterprise - now the Progress Rocket and Space Center (RSC) - under the leadership of D.I. , among other things, was intended for reconnaissance missions. We will not discuss the very problem of the presence of a person on a photographic reconnaissance satellite, which now seems at least strange, - let's just say that in Kuibyshev, on the basis of the technical solutions of the Soyuz, the appearance of a manned vehicle was formed, significantly different from the progenitor, but focused on launch using a carrier rocket of the same family that brought out ships of the 7K-OK and 7K-T types.

The project, which included several highlights, never saw space, and was closed in 1968. The main reason is usually considered the desire of the TsKBEM management to monopolize the topic of manned flights in the head design bureau. It proposed instead of one 7K-VI spacecraft to design the Soyuz-VI orbital research station (OIS) from two components - an orbital block (OB-VI), the development of which was entrusted to the branch in Kuibyshev, and a manned transport vehicle (7K-S), which was designed on its own in Podlipki.

Many decisions and developments made both in the branch and in the head design bureau were involved, but the customer - the USSR Ministry of Defense - recognized the already mentioned complex based on the Almaz OPS as a more promising means of reconnaissance.

Despite the closure of the Soyuz-VI project and the transfer of significant TsKBEM forces to the Salyut DOS creation program, work on the 7K-S ship continued: the military was ready to use it for autonomous experimental flights with a crew of two, and the developers saw the project the possibility of creating on the basis of 7K-S modifications of the ship for various purposes.

Interestingly, the design was carried out by a team of specialists not associated with the creation of 7K-OK and 7K-T. At first, the developers tried, while maintaining the overall layout, to improve such characteristics of the ship as autonomy and the ability to maneuver over a wide range, by changing the power structure and the locations of individual modified systems. However, as the project progressed, it became clear that a dramatic improvement in functionality is possible only through fundamental changes.

Ultimately, the project was fundamentally different from the base model. 80% of the 7K-S onboard systems were developed anew or significantly modernized, the equipment used a modern element base. In particular, new system motion control "Chaika-3" was built on the basis of an onboard digital computer complex based on the computer "Argon-16" and a strapdown inertial navigation system. The fundamental difference of the system was the transition from direct motion control based on measurement data to control based on an adjustable ship motion model implemented in the on-board computer. The sensors of the navigation system measured angular velocities and linear accelerations in a linked coordinate system, which, in turn, were simulated in a computer. "Chaika-3" calculated the parameters of movement and automatically controlled the ship in optimal modes with the lowest fuel consumption, conducted self-control with the transition - if necessary - to backup programs and means, giving the crew information on the display.

The astronauts' console installed in the descent vehicle became fundamentally new: the main means of displaying information had matrix-type command and signal consoles and a combined electronic display based on a kinescope. The devices for the exchange of information with the on-board computer were fundamentally new. And even though the first domestic electronic display possessed (as some experts joked) a “chicken intelligence interface”, this was already a significant step towards cutting the information “umbilical cord” connecting the ship with the Earth.

A new propulsion system with a single fuel system was developed for the main engine and the docking and orientation micromotors. It became more reliable and held a larger supply of fuel than before. Solar panels removed after Soyuz-11 were returned to the ship for relief, the emergency rescue system, parachutes and soft-landing engines were improved. At the same time, the ship externally remained very similar to the 7K-T prototype.

In 1974, when the USSR Ministry of Defense decided to abandon autonomous military research missions, the project was reoriented to transport flights to orbital stations, and the number of the crew was brought to three people, dressed in updated emergency rescue suits.

⇡ Another ship and its development

The ship received the designation 7K-ST. By the totality of numerous changes, it was even planned to give it a new name - "Vityaz", but in the end it was designated as "Soyuz T". The first unmanned flight of the new device (still in the 7K-C version) was made on August 6, 1974, and the first manned Soyuz T-2 (7K-ST) was launched only on June 5, 1980. Such a long way to regular missions was determined not only by the complexity of new solutions, but also by a certain opposition of the "old" development team, which in parallel continued to refine and operate the 7K-T - in the period from April 1971 to May 1981, the "old" ship flew 31 times under the designation "Soyuz" and 9 times as a satellite "Cosmos". For comparison: from April 1978 to March 1986, 7K-S and 7K-ST made 3 unmanned and 15 manned flights.

Nevertheless, having won a place in the sun, Soyuz T eventually became the "workhorse" of domestic manned astronautics - it was on its basis that the design of the next model (7K-STM) began, intended for transport flights to high-latitude orbital stations. It was assumed that the third-generation DOS would operate in an orbit with an inclination of 65 ° in order for their flight path to cover most of the country's territory: when launched into an orbit with an inclination of 51 °, everything that remains north of the path is inaccessible for instruments intended for observation from orbits.

Since the Soyuz-U launch vehicle, when launching the spacecraft to high-latitude stations, did not take up about 350 kg of payload mass, it could not put the spacecraft into the required orbit in the standard configuration. It was necessary to compensate for the loss of carrying capacity, as well as create a modification of the ship with increased autonomy and even greater possibilities for maneuvering.

The problem with the rocket was solved by transferring the second stage engines of the carrier (received the designation "Soyuz-U2") to a new high-energy synthetic hydrocarbon fuel "Sintin" ("Cyclin").

The "cyclin" version of the Soyuz-U2 launch vehicle flew from December 1982 to July 1993. Photo by Roscosmos

And the ship was redesigned, equipped with an improved propulsion system of increased reliability with an increased fuel reserve, as well as new systems - in particular, the old rendezvous system ("Igla") was replaced with a new one ("Course"), which allows docking without reorienting the station. Now all targeting modes, including the Earth and the Sun, could be performed either automatically or with the participation of the crew, and the approach was carried out on the basis of calculations of the trajectory of relative motion and optimal maneuvers - they were performed using the on-board computer using information from the Kurs system ... For duplication, a teleoperator control mode (TORU) was introduced, which allowed the cosmonaut from the station to take control and manually dock the spacecraft in the event of a Kurs's refusal.

The ship could be controlled by the command radio link or by the crew using new onboard input and display devices. The updated communication system made it possible, during autonomous flight, to contact the Earth through the station to which the ship was flying, which significantly expanded the radio visibility zone. The propulsion system of the emergency rescue system and parachutes were again altered (lightweight nylon was used for the domes, and the domestic analogue of Kevlar for lines).

A draft design for the next model ship - 7K-STM - was released in April 1981, and flight tests began with the unmanned launch of Soyuz TM on May 21, 1986. Alas, there was only one station of the third generation - "Mir", and it flew in the "old" orbit with an inclination of 51 °. But the manned spacecraft flights, which began in February 1987, ensured not only the successful operation of this complex, but also the initial stage of the ISS operation.

When designing the above-mentioned orbital complex, in order to significantly reduce the duration of "dead" orbits, an attempt was made to create a satellite communication, control and management system based on Altair geostationary relay satellites, ground relay points and corresponding on-board radio equipment. Such a system was successfully used in flight control during the operation of the Mir station, however, the Soyuz-type ships could not be equipped with such equipment at that time.

Since 1996, due to the high cost and lack of deposits of raw materials on Russian territory it was necessary to abandon the use of the Sintin: starting with the Soyuz TM-24, all manned spacecraft returned to the Soyuz-U carrier. The problem of insufficient energy arose again, which was supposed to be solved by lightening the ship and modernizing the rocket.

From May 1986 to April 2002, 33 manned and 1 unmanned vehicles of the 7K-STM series were launched - all of them went under the designation "Soyuz TM".

The next modification of the ship was created for use in international missions. Its design coincided with the development of the ISS, more precisely, with the mutual integration of the American project Freedom and the Russian Mir-2. Since the construction was supposed to be carried out by American shuttles, which could not stay in orbit for a long time, a rescue apparatus had to be constantly on duty as part of the station, capable of safely returning the crew to Earth in the event of an emergency.

The United States worked on a CRV (Crew Return Vehicle) "space taxi" based on an X-38 monocoque vehicle, and the Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia (this is how the company eventually became known as the successor to the "King's" OKB-1 ) offered a capsule-type ship based on a large-scale enlarged Soyuz descent vehicle. Both vehicles were to be delivered to the ISS in the cargo compartment of the shuttle, which, in addition, was considered as the main means of flight for crews from Earth to the station and back.

On November 20, 1998, the first element of the ISS, the Zarya functional cargo block, created in Russia with American money, was launched into space. Construction has begun. At this stage, the parties carried out the delivery of crews on a parity basis - by shuttles and Soyuz-TM. The great technical difficulties that stood in the way of the CRV project, and a significant excess of the budget forced the development of the American rescue ship to be stopped. A special Russian rescue ship was also not created, but work in this direction received an unexpected (or natural?) Continuation.

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was killed while returning from orbit. There was no real threat of shutting down the ISS project, but the situation turned out to be critical. The parties dealt with the situation by reducing the crew of the complex from three to two people and accepting the Russian proposal for permanent duty at the station of the Russian Soyuz TM. Then the modified transport manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA, created on the basis of 7K-STM within the framework of the previously reached interstate agreement between Russia and the United States, as part of the orbital station complex, pulled up. Its main purpose was to ensure the rescue of the main crew of the station and the delivery of visiting expeditions.

Based on the results of earlier flights of international crews on Soyuz TM, specific anthropometric requirements were taken into account in the design of the new spacecraft (hence the letter “A” in the model designation): among American astronauts there are persons who are quite different from Russian cosmonauts in height and weight, both up and down (see table). It must be said that this difference influenced not only the comfort of placement in the descent vehicle, but also the alignment, which was important for a safe landing when returning from orbit and required a modification of the descent control system.

Anthropometric parameters of the crew members of the Soyuz TM and Soyuz TMA spacecraft

Options	"Soyuz TM"	"Soyuz TMA"
1. Height, cm
... maximum in a standing position	182	190
... minimal standing	164	150
... maximum in a sitting position	94	99
2. Bust, cm
... maximum	112	not limited
... minimum	96	not limited
3. Body weight, kg
. maximum	85	95
... minimal	56	50
4. Maximum foot length, cm	-	29,5

The Soyuz TMA descent vehicle was equipped with three newly developed elongated seats with new four-mode shock absorbers, which are adjusted according to the astronaut's weight. The equipment in the areas adjacent to the seats has been rearranged. Inside the body of the descent vehicle, in the area of ​​the footrests of the right and left seats, punchings about 30 mm deep were made, which made it possible to place tall astronauts in elongated seats. The power set of the hull and the laying of pipelines and cables have changed, the zone of passage through the entrance hatch-manhole has expanded. A new control panel, reduced in height, a new refrigeration and drying unit, an information storage unit and other new or refined systems have been installed. As far as possible, the cockpit was cleared of protruding elements, moving them to more convenient places.

Controls and display systems installed in the Soyuz TMA descent vehicle: 1 - the commander and flight engineer-1 have integrated control panels in front of them (InPU); 2 - numeric keypad for entering codes (for navigating through the InPU display); 3 - marker control unit (for navigation on the INPU display); 4 - block of electroluminescent indication of the current state of systems; 5 - manual rotary valves RPV-1 and RPV-2, which are responsible for filling the breathing lines with oxygen; 6 - electropneumatic oxygen supply valve during landing; 7 - the commander of the spacecraft observes the docking through the periscope "Special Cosmonaut Vizier (VSC)"; 8 - using the motion control knob (throttle), the ship is given a linear (positive or negative) acceleration; 9 - using the attitude control knob (OBM), the ship is rotated; 10 - fan of the refrigeration and drying unit (CSA), which removes heat and excess moisture from the ship; 11 - toggle switches for switching on ventilation of spacesuits during landing; 12 - voltmeter; 13 - fuse box; 14 - button to start the preservation of the ship after docking with the orbital station

Once again, the landing facility was improved - it became more reliable and made it possible to reduce the overloads that occur after descent on the reserve parachute system.

The problem of rescuing the fully manned ISS crew of six people was ultimately solved by the simultaneous presence of two Soyuz at the station, which since 2011, after the shuttles retired, have become the only manned spacecraft in the world.

To confirm the reliability, a significant (at the present time) volume of experimental testing and prototyping with a test fitting of crews, including NASA astronauts, was carried out. Unlike the ships of the previous series, unmanned launches were not carried out: the first launch of the Soyuz TMA-1 took place on October 30, 2002, immediately with the crew. In total, 22 ships of this series were launched by November 2011.

⇡ Digital "Union"

Since the beginning of the new millennium, the main efforts of RSC Energia specialists have been aimed at improving the on-board systems of ships by replacing analog equipment with digital ones, made on a modern component base. The prerequisites for this were the obsolescence of the equipment and manufacturing technology, as well as the termination of the production of a number of components.

Since 2005, the enterprise has been working on the modernization of the "Soyuz TMA" in order to ensure the implementation of modern requirements to the reliability of manned ships and the safety of the crew. The main changes were made to the motion control systems, navigation and on-board measurements - the replacement of this equipment with modern instruments based on computing facilities with advanced software made it possible to improve the operational characteristics of the ship, solve the problem of ensuring guaranteed supplies of key service systems, and reduce the weight and occupied volume.

In total, in the motion control and navigation system of the ship of the new modification, instead of six old devices with a total mass of 101 kg, five new ones with a mass of about 42 kg were installed. Power consumption dropped from 402 watts to 105 watts, while the performance and reliability of the central computer increased. In the onboard measurement system, 30 old devices with a total mass of about 70 kg were replaced by 14 new ones with a total mass of about 28 kg with the same information content.

In order to organize the control, power supply and thermostating of the new equipment, the control systems of the onboard complex and the provision of thermal conditions by making additional improvements to the spacecraft design (improved manufacturability), as well as improving the communication interfaces with the ISS. As a result, it was possible to lighten the ship by about 70 kg, which made it possible to increase the possibilities for the delivery of payload, as well as further increase the reliability of the Soyuz.

One of the stages of modernization was tested on the Progress M-01M truck in 2008. On an unmanned vehicle, which is in many ways analogous to a manned spacecraft, the outdated onboard Argon-16 was replaced with a modern digital computer TsVM101 with triple redundancy, with a capacity of 8 million operations per second and a service life of 35 thousand hours, which was developed by the Submicron Research Institute ( Zelenograd, Moscow). The new computer uses the 3081 RISC processor (since 2011, the TsVM101 has been equipped with a domestic 1890BM1T processor). Also on board was installed new digital telemetry, a new guidance system and experimental software.

The first launch of the Soyuz TMA-01M manned spacecraft took place on October 8, 2010. In his cockpit there was a modernized "Neptune" console, made with the use of modern computing facilities and information display devices, featuring new interfaces and software. All computers of the spacecraft (TsVM101, KS020-M, console computers) are united into a common computer network - an onboard digital computer complex, which is integrated into the computer system of the Russian segment of the ISS after the spacecraft is docked with the station. As a result, all of the Soyuz's on-board information can enter the control system of the station for monitoring, and vice versa. This capability allows you to quickly change the navigation data in the control system of the spacecraft in case it is necessary to perform a regular or urgent descent from orbit.

European astronauts Andreas Mogensen and Toma Peske practice control of the movement of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft on a simulator. Screenshot from ESA video

The first digital Soyuz has not yet embarked on its manned flight, and in 2009 RSC Energia contacted Roskosmos with a proposal to consider the possibility of further modernization of Progress M-M and Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft. The need for this is due to the fact that the obsolete Kvant and Kama stations were decommissioned in the ground-based automated control complex. The former provide the main control loop for the spacecraft flight from the Earth through the onboard radio-technical complex "Kvant-V", produced in Ukraine, the latter - the measurement of the parameters of the ship's orbit.

Modern "Unions" are controlled along three circuits. The first is automatic: the on-board system solves the control problem without outside interference. The second circuit is provided by the Earth with the involvement of radio technical means. Finally, the third is manual control of the crew. Previous upgrades have provided updates to the automatic and manual circuit. The very last stage involved radio equipment.

The onboard command system "Kvant-V" is being replaced by a unified command-telemetry system equipped with an additional telemetry channel. The latter will sharply increase the independence of spacecraft from ground control points: the command radio link will ensure operation through the Luch-5 relay satellites, expanding the radio visibility zone to 70% of the orbit duration. A new radio-technical approach system "Kurs-NA", which has already passed flight tests on the "Progress M-M", will appear on board. Compared to the previous "Course-A", it is lighter, more compact (including by eliminating one of the three complex radio antennas) and more energy efficient. "Kurs-NA" is produced in Russia and is made on a new element base.

The system includes satellite navigation equipment ASN-KS, capable of working with both domestic GLONASS and American GPS, which will ensure high accuracy in determining the speeds and coordinates of the spacecraft in orbit without involving ground-based measuring systems.

The transmitter of the Klest-M onboard television system was previously analog, now it has been replaced by a digital one, with video encoding in MPEG-2 format. As a result, the influence of industrial noise on the image quality has decreased.

In the onboard measurement system, a modernized information recording unit is used, made on a modern domestic element base. The power supply system has been significantly changed: the area of ​​photovoltaic converters of solar batteries has grown by more than one square meter, and their efficiency has increased from 12 to 14%, an additional buffer battery has been installed. As a result, the power of the system has increased and provides a guaranteed power supply to the equipment during the docking of the spacecraft with the ISS, even in case of failure to open one of the solar panels.

The placement of the docking and attitude control engines of the combined propulsion system has been changed: now the flight program can be executed in case of failure of any one engine, and the safety of the crew will be ensured even in case of two failures in the docking and attitude drive subsystem.

Once again, the accuracy of the radioisotope altimeter, which includes soft-landing engines, has been increased. Improvements to the system for ensuring the thermal regime made it possible to exclude abnormal functioning of the coolant flow.

The communication and direction finding system has been modernized, which allows using the GLONASS / GPS receiver to determine the coordinates of the landing site of the descent vehicle and transmit them to the search and rescue team, as well as to the MCC near Moscow via the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system.

The changes affected the structure of the spacecraft to the least extent: additional protection from micrometeorites and space debris was installed on the hull of the utility compartment.

Traditionally, the upgraded systems were tested on the cargo spacecraft - this time on Progress MS, which was launched to the ISS on December 21, 2015. During the mission, for the first time during the operation of the Soyuz and Progress, a communication session was carried out via the Luch-5B relay satellite. The regular flight of the "truck" opened the way to the mission of the manned Soyuz MS. By the way, the launch of Soyuz TM-20AM on March 16, 2016 completed this series: the last set of the Kurs-A system was installed on the ship.

A video from the Roskosmos television studio describing the modernization of the Soyuz MS spacecraft systems.

⇡ Flight preparation and start

Design documentation for the installation of instruments and equipment for Soyuz MS has been issued by RSC Energia since 2013. At the same time, the manufacture of body parts began. The ship manufacturing cycle in the corporation is approximately two years, so the start of flight operation of the new Soyuz was assigned to 2016.

After the first ship entered the factory control and test station, for some time its launch was planned for March 2016, but in December 2015 it was postponed to June 21. At the end of April, the launch was postponed by three days. The media reported that one of the reasons for the postponement was the desire to reduce the interval between the landing of the Soyuz TMA-19M and the launch of the Soyuz MS-01 "in order to make the ISS crew work more efficiently." Accordingly, the landing date of the Soyuz TMA-19M was shifted from 5 to 18 June.

On January 13, preparation of the Soyuz-FG rocket began at Baikonur: the carrier blocks passed the necessary checks, and the specialists started assembling the "package" (a bundle of four side blocks of the first and central block of the second stage), to which the third stage was attached.

On May 14, a ship arrived at the cosmodrome, and preparations for launch began. Already on May 17, there was a message about the verification of the automatic control system for the attitude and docking engines. At the end of May, Soyuz MS-01 was tested for tightness. At the same time, the propulsion system of the emergency rescue system was delivered to Baikonur.

From May 20 to May 25, the ship was tested for tightness in a vacuum chamber, after which it was transported to the assembly and testing building (MIC) of site 254 for further checks and tests. In the process of preparation, malfunctions were discovered in the control system that could lead to a spinning of the spacecraft when docked with the ISS. The originally put forward version of the software failure was not confirmed during tests on the control system equipment stand. "The specialists updated the software, tested it on a ground simulator, but even after that the situation has not changed," an anonymous source in the industry said.

On June 1, experts recommended postponing the launch of the Soyuz MS. On June 6, a meeting of the State Commission of Roscosmos was held under the chairmanship of the First Deputy Head of the State Corporation Alexander Ivanov, who decided to postpone the start to July 7. Correspondingly, the launch of the Progress MS-03 cargo truck was also moved (from 7 to 19 July).

The backup circuit control unit was removed from the Soyuz MS-01 and sent to Moscow for a software upgrade.

In parallel with the technique, the crews were also preparing - the main and the backup. In mid-May, the Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and the Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, as well as their counterparts - Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and ESA astronaut Toma Peske, were successfully tested on a specialized simulator based on the TsF-7 centrifuge: the possibility of manual control of the descent of the spacecraft was tested. simulation of overloads occurring during entry into the atmosphere. Astronauts and astronauts successfully coped with the task, "landing" as close as possible to the calculated landing point with minimal overloads. Then the planned trainings on the simulators of the Soyuz MS and the Russian segment of the ISS continued, as well as classes on conducting scientific and medical experiments, physical and medical training for the effects of space flight factors and exams.

On May 31, in Zvezdny Gorodok, the final decision was made on the main and backup crews: Anatoly Ivanishin - commander, Kathleen Rubens - flight engineer №1 and Takuya Onishi - flight engineer №2. The backup crew included Oleg Novitsky, commander, Peggy Whitson, flight engineer # 1, and Toma Peske, flight engineer # 2.

On June 24, the main and backup crews arrived at the cosmodrome, the next day they examined the Soyuz MS in the MIC of site 254, and then began training at the Test Training Complex.

The emblem of the mission, created by the Spanish designer Jorge Cartes, is interesting: it shows the Soyuz MS-01 approaching the ISS, as well as the name of the spacecraft and the names of the crew members in the languages ​​of their native countries. The ship number - "01" - is highlighted in large print, with a tiny Mars depicted inside the zero, as a hint of global goal manned astronautics for the coming decades.

On July 4, the rocket with the docked spacecraft was taken out of the MIK and installed on the first platform ("Gagarinsky launch") of the Baikonur cosmodrome. At a speed of 3-4 km / h, the removal procedure takes about one and a half. The security service suppressed the attempts of the guests, who were present at the export, to flatten the coins under the wheels of a diesel locomotive pulling a platform with a carrier rocket laid on the installer.

On July 6, the State Commission finally approved the previously planned prime crew of Expedition 48-49 to the ISS.

On July 7, at 01:30 Moscow time, preparations began for the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket for launch. At 02:15 Moscow time, the cosmonauts, dressed in spacesuits, took their seats in the cockpit of the Soyuz MS-01.

At 03:59, a 30-minute readiness for launch was announced, the transfer of service columns to a horizontal position began. At 04:03 Moscow time, the emergency rescue system was cocked. At 04:08 a report was passed on the implementation of prelaunch operations in full and the evacuation of the launch crew to a safe zone.

15 minutes before the start, to cheer up "Irkutam" began to broadcast light music and songs in Japanese and English.

At 04:36:40 the rocket launched! After 120 seconds, the propulsion system of the emergency rescue system was thrown and the side blocks of the first stage retreated. At 295 seconds of flight, the second stage departed. At 530 seconds, the third stage finished its work and Soyuz MS was launched into orbit. A new modification of the veteran ship rushed into space. ISS Expedition 48-49 has begun.

⇡ Prospects for the Union

This year, two more spacecraft are to be launched (on September 23, Soyuz MS-02 flies and on November 6, Soyuz MS-03) and two "trucks", which, according to the control system, are largely unmanned analogs of manned vehicles (July 17 - "Progress MS-03" and October 23 - "Progress MS-04"). The next year is expected to launch three "Soyuz MS" and three "Progress MS". Plans for 2018 look roughly the same.

On March 30, 2016, during a press conference of the head of the Roscosmos State Corporation I. V. Komarov, dedicated to the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 (FKP-2025), a slide was shown showing proposals for a total of 16 MS Unions and 27 MS Progress. Taking into account the already published Russian plans with a specific indication of the launch date until 2019, the plate is generally consistent with reality: in 2018-2019, NASA hopes to start flights of commercial manned spacecraft that will deliver American astronauts to the ISS, which will eliminate the need for such a significant number of Soyuz launches as of now.

Under a contract with the United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), Energia Corporation will equip the Soyuz MS manned spacecraft with individual equipment for sending six astronauts to the ISS and returning to earth under an agreement with NASA, which expires in December 2019.

The spacecraft will be launched by Soyuz-FG and Soyuz-2.1A launch vehicles (from 2021). On June 23, the RIA Novosti agency reported that the Roscosmos State Corporation announced two open tenders for the manufacture and supply of three Soyuz-2.1A missiles for launching the Progress MS cargo spacecraft (the shipment period is until November 25, 2017, the initial price contract - more than 3.3 billion rubles) and two Soyuz-FGs for manned spacecraft Soyuz MS (shipment deadline is November 25, 2018, the maximum price for manufacturing and delivery is more than 1.6 billion rubles).

Thus, starting with the just completed launch, Soyuz MS has become the only Russian vehicle for delivering to the ISS and returning cosmonauts to Earth.

Spacecraft options for near-earth orbital flights

Name	Soyuz 7K-OK	Soyuz 7K-T	Soyuz 7K-TM	"Soyuz T"	"Soyuz TM"	"Soyuz TMA"	"Soyuz TMA-M"	"Soyuz MS"
Years of operation	1967-1971	1973-1981	1975	1976-1986	1986-2002	2003-2012	2010-2016	2016-…
General characteristics
Starting weight, kg	6560	6800	6680	6850	7250	7220	7150	-
Length, m	7,48
Maximum diameter, m	2,72
The span of solar panels, m	9,80	9,80	8,37	10,6	10,6	10,7	10,7	-
Household compartment
Weight, kg	1100	1350	1224	1100	1450	1370	?	?
Length, m	3,45	2,98	310	2,98	2,98	2,98	2,98	2,98
Diameter, m	2,26
Free volume, m 3	5,00
Descent vehicle
Weight, kg	2810	2850	2802	3000	2850	2950	?	?
Length, m	2,24
Diameter, m	2,2
Free volume, m 3	4,00	3,50	4,00	4,00	3,50	3,50	?	?
Instrument-assembly compartment
Weight, kg	2650	2700	2654	2750	2950	2900	?	?
Fuel capacity, kg	500	500	500	700	880	880	?	?
Length, m	2,26
Diameter m	2,72

If you trace the entire fifty-year evolution of the Soyuz, you will notice that all the changes not associated with a change in the "type of activity" mainly concerned the ship's onboard systems and had relatively little effect on its appearance and internal layout. But attempts at "revolutions" were undertaken, and more than once, but invariably stumbled upon the fact that such design modifications (associated, for example, with an increase in the size of the utility compartment or the descent vehicle) led to a sharp increase in related problems: changes in masses, moments of inertia, and alignment, as well as the aerodynamic characteristics of the ship's compartments entailed the need to carry out a complex of expensive tests and breakdown of the entire technological process, in which, since the late 1960s, several dozen (if not hundreds) of allied enterprises of the first level of cooperation (suppliers of devices, systems , launch vehicles), causing an avalanche-like increase in time and money costs, which might not have been repaid at all by the benefits obtained. And even changes that did not affect the layout and appearance of the Soyuz were introduced into the design only when a real problem arose that could not be solved by the existing version of the ship.

The Soyuz MS will be the pinnacle of evolution and the last major upgrade of the veteran ship. In the future, it will undergo only minor modifications associated with the removal from production of individual devices, updating the element base and launch vehicles. For example, it is planned to replace a number of electronic units in the emergency rescue system, as well as adapt the Soyuz MS to the Soyuz-2.1A launch vehicle.

In the opinion of a number of experts, the Soyuz-class spacecraft are suitable for performing a number of missions outside the Earth orbit. For example, several years ago the Space Adventures company (which carried out marketing of visits to the ISS by space tourists), together with RSC Energia, offered tourist flights along the trajectory of the lunar orbital. The scheme provided for two launches of carrier rockets. The first to take off was Proton-M with an upper stage equipped with an additional living module and a docking station. The second is the Soyuz-FG with the "lunar" modification of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft with a crew on board. Both assemblies docked in low-earth orbit, and then the upper stage sent the complex to the target. The ship's fuel supply was sufficient to perform trajectory corrections. According to the plans, the trip took a total of about a week, giving tourists two or three days after the start the opportunity to enjoy the views of the moon from a distance of a couple of hundred kilometers.

The revision of the spacecraft itself consisted, first of all, in enhancing the thermal protection of the descent vehicle to ensure safe entry into the atmosphere at a second space velocity, as well as in the revision of life support systems for a weekly flight. The crew was supposed to consist of three people - a professional astronaut and two tourists. The cost of the "ticket" was estimated at $ 150 million. No one has yet been found ...

Meanwhile, as we remember, the "lunar roots" of the "Union" indicate the absence of technical obstacles to the implementation of such an expedition on a modified ship. The only question is about money. Perhaps the mission can be simplified by sending Soyuz to the Moon using the Angara-A5 launch vehicle, which is launched, for example, from the Vostochny cosmodrome.

However, at the present time it seems unlikely that the "lunar" "Soyuz" will ever appear: the effective demand for such trips is too small and the costs of modifying the ship for extremely rare missions are too high. Moreover, the Soyuz should be replaced by the Federation, a new generation manned transport vehicle (PTK NP), which is being developed at RSC Energia. The new ship can accommodate a larger crew - four people (and in case of an emergency rescue from an orbital station - up to six) versus three at the Soyuz. The resource of the systems and energy capabilities allow him (not in principle, but in the realities of life) to solve much more complex problems, including flying into the circumlunar space. The design of the PTK NP is "sharpened" for flexible use: a ship for flights beyond low-earth orbit, a transport for supply space station, a lifeguard, a tourist device or a system for the return of goods.

Note that the latest modernization of the "Soyuz MS" and "Progress MS" allows now to use the ships as "flying test benches" for working out solutions and systems when creating the "Federation". So it is: the improvements carried out are among the measures aimed at creating the NP PTK. Flight certification of new instruments and equipment installed on Soyuz TMA-M will make it possible to make appropriate decisions in relation to the Federation.

100 years ago, the fathers - the founders of astronautics could hardly imagine that spaceships will be thrown into a landfill after a single flight. It is not surprising that the first projects of the ships were seen as reusable and often winged. For a long time - until the very beginning of manned flights - they competed on the drawing boards of designers with disposable "Vostok" and "Mercury". Alas, most of the reusable ships remained projects, and the only reusable system accepted for operation (Space Shuttle) turned out to be terribly expensive and far from the most reliable. Why did it happen?

The rocket industry is based on two sources - aviation and artillery. The aviation principle required reusability and cruise control, while the artillery principle was inclined to the one-time use of a "rocket projectile". The combat rockets, from which practical cosmonautics grew, were, of course, disposable.

When it came to practice, designers were faced with a whole range of high-speed flight problems, including extremely high mechanical and thermal loads. Through theoretical research, as well as trial and error, engineers were able to choose the optimal shape of the warhead and effective heat-shielding materials. And when the question of the development of real spaceships came up on the agenda, the designers were faced with a choice of concept: to build a space "plane" or a capsule-type apparatus, similar to the head of an intercontinental ballistic missile? Since the space race was going on at a frantic pace, the simplest solution was chosen - after all, in matters of aerodynamics and design, the capsule is much simpler than an aircraft.

It quickly became clear that at the technical level of those years it was almost impossible to make a capsule ship reusable. The ballistic capsule enters the atmosphere at a tremendous speed, and its surface can heat up to 2,500-3,000 degrees. A space plane with a sufficiently high aerodynamic quality, when descending from orbit, experiences almost half the temperatures (1,300-1,600 degrees), but materials suitable for its thermal protection were not yet created in the 1950s-1960s. The only effective thermal protection was then a deliberately disposable ablative coating: the coating substance melted and evaporated from the surface of the capsule by the flow of oncoming gas, absorbing and carrying away heat, which otherwise would have caused unacceptable heating of the descent vehicle.

Attempts to place all systems in a single capsule - a propulsion system with fuel tanks, control systems, life support and energy supply - led to a rapid increase in the mass of the apparatus: the larger the capsule size, the greater the mass of the heat-protective coating (which was used, for example, resins with a fairly high density). However, the carrying capacity of the then launch vehicles was limited. The solution was found in dividing the ship into functional compartments. The "heart" of the cosmonaut's life support system was housed in a relatively small cabin-capsule with thermal protection, and the blocks of the remaining systems were taken out into disposable detachable compartments, which naturally did not have any thermal protection coating. It seems that the designers were also prompted to such a decision by the small resource of the main systems of space technology. For example, a liquid-propellant rocket engine "lives" for several hundred seconds, and to bring its resource up to several hours, you need to make great efforts.

Prehistory of reusable ships
One of the first technically developed space shuttle projects was a rocket plane designed by Eugen Senger. In 1929 he chose this project for his doctoral dissertation. According to the plan of the Austrian engineer, who was only 24 years old, the rocket plane was supposed to enter low-earth orbit, for example, to service the orbital station, and then return to Earth using wings. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, at a specially created closed research institute, he carried out a deep study of a missile aircraft known as the "antipode bomber." Fortunately, the project was not implemented in the Third Reich, but it became the starting point for many post-war work both in the West and in the USSR.

So, in the United States, at the initiative of V. Dornberger (head of the V-2 program in Nazi Germany), in the early 1950s, a Bomi missile bomber was designed, a two-stage version of which could enter low-earth orbit. In 1957, the US military began work on the DynaSoar rocket plane. The device was supposed to carry out special missions (inspection of satellites, reconnaissance and strike operations, etc.) and return to the base in a planning flight.

In the USSR, even before the flight of Yuri Gagarin, several options for winged manned reusable vehicles were considered, such as VKA-23 (chief designer V.M. Myasishchev), "136" (A.N. Tupolev), as well as the project of P.V. ... Tsybina, known as "lapotok", developed by order of S.P. Queen.

In the second half of the 1960s in the USSR, A.I. Mikoyan, under the leadership of G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky, work was underway on the Spiral reusable aerospace system, which consisted of a supersonic booster aircraft and an orbital aircraft launched into orbit using a two-stage rocket booster. The orbital aircraft was similar in size and purpose to the DynaSoar, but differed in shape and technical details. The option of launching the Spiral into space with the help of the Soyuz carrier rocket was also considered.

Due to the insufficient technical level of those years, none of the numerous projects of reusable winged vehicles of the 1950-1960s left the design stage.

First incarnation

And yet the idea of ​​reusability of rocket and space technology turned out to be tenacious. By the end of the 1960s, in the United States and somewhat later in the USSR and Europe, a fair amount of ground has been accumulated in the field of hypersonic aerodynamics, new structural and heat-shielding materials. And theoretical studies were supported by experiments, including flights of experimental aircraft, the most famous of which was the American X-15.

In 1969, NASA signed the first contracts with US aerospace companies to study the appearance of the promising reusable space transport system Space Shuttle (English - "space shuttle"). According to forecasts of that time, by the beginning of the 1980s, the "Earth-orbit-Earth" cargo traffic was supposed to be up to 800 tons per year, and the shuttles had to make 50-60 flights annually, delivering spacecraft for various purposes to low-earth orbit, as well as crews and cargo for orbital stations. It was expected that the cost of launching cargo into orbit would not exceed $ 1,000 per kilogram. At the same time, the space shuttle required the ability to return large enough loads from orbit, for example, expensive multi-ton satellites for repair on Earth. It should be noted that the task of returning cargo from orbit is in some respects more difficult than putting them into space. For example, on the Soyuz spacecraft, cosmonauts returning from the International Space Station can take less than a hundred kilograms of luggage.

In May 1970, after analyzing the proposals received, NASA chose a system with two winged stages and awarded contracts for further development of the project to North American Rockwell and McDonnel Douglas. With a launch mass of about 1,500 tons, it was supposed to launch into low orbit from 9 to 20 tons of payload. Both stages were supposed to be equipped with bundles of oxygen-hydrogen engines with a thrust of 180 tons each. However, in January 1971, the requirements were revised - the withdrawn weight increased to 29.5 tons, and the starting weight - up to 2,265 tons. According to calculations, the launch of the system cost no more than $ 5 million, but the development was estimated at $ 10 billion - more than the US Congress was ready to allocate (let's not forget that the United States was at that time at war in Indochina).

NASA and the development companies were faced with the task of reducing the cost of the project by at least half. This was not achieved within the framework of a fully reusable concept: it was too difficult to develop thermal protection for steps with voluminous cryogenic tanks. The idea arose to make the tanks external, disposable. Then they abandoned the winged first stage in favor of reusable starting solid-propellant boosters. The configuration of the system took on a familiar form, and its cost, about $ 5 billion, kept within the specified limits. True, the launch costs at the same time increased to $ 12 million, but this was considered quite acceptable. As one of the developers bitterly joked, "the shuttle was designed by accountants, not engineers."

Full-scale development of the Space Shuttle, entrusted to North American Rockwell (later Rockwell International), began in 1972. By the time the system was put into operation (and the first flight of the Columbia took place on April 12, 1981 - exactly 20 years after Gagarin), it was in all respects a technological masterpiece. That's just the cost of its development exceeded $ 12 billion. Today, the cost of one launch reaches a fantastic $ 500 million! How so? After all, reusable, in principle, should be cheaper than a one-off (at least in terms of one flight)?

First, the forecasts for the volume of cargo traffic did not come true - it turned out to be an order of magnitude less than expected. Secondly, the compromise between engineers and financiers did not benefit the shuttle's efficiency: the cost of repair and restoration work for a number of units and systems reached half the cost of their production! The maintenance of the unique ceramic thermal protection was especially expensive. Finally, the abandonment of the winged first stage led to the fact that for reuse solid propellant boosters had to organize costly search and rescue operations.

In addition, the shuttle could only operate in manned mode, which significantly increased the cost of each mission. The cockpit with the astronauts is not separated from the spacecraft, which is why, in some parts of the flight, any serious accident is fraught with disaster with the death of the crew and the loss of the shuttle. This has happened twice already - with Challenger (January 28, 1986) and Columbia (February 1, 2003). The latest disaster changed the attitude towards the Space Shuttle program: after 2010, the shuttles will be decommissioned. They will be replaced by "Orions", which outwardly very much resemble their grandfather - the ship "Apollo" - and have a reusable rescue capsule of the crew.

Hermes, France / ESA, 1979-1994. An orbital aircraft launched vertically by the Ariane-5 rocket, landing horizontally with a side maneuver up to 1,500 km. Launch weight - 700 tons, orbital stage - 10-20 tons. Crew - 3-4 people, withdrawn cargo - 3 tons, return - 1.5 tons

New generation shuttles

Since the start of the Space Shuttle program, there have been numerous attempts to create new reusable ships in the world. The Hermes project began to be developed in France in the late 1970s, and then continued within the framework of the European Space Agency. This small space plane, strongly reminiscent of the DynaSoar project (and the Clipper being developed in Russia), was to be launched into orbit with a disposable Ariane-5 rocket, delivering several crew members and up to three tons of cargo to the orbital station. Despite the rather conservative design, "Hermes" proved to be beyond Europe's strength. In 1994, the project, which had spent about $ 2 billion, was closed.

The HOTOL (Horizontal Take-Off and Landing) unmanned aerospace aircraft, proposed in 1984 by British Aerospace, looked much more fantastic. According to the concept, this single-stage winged vehicle was supposed to be equipped with a unique propulsion system that liquefies oxygen from the air in flight and uses it as an oxidizer. The fuel was hydrogen. Funding for the work from the state (three million pounds) after three years ceased due to the need for huge costs to demonstrate the concept of an unusual engine. An intermediate position between the "revolutionary" HOTOL and the conservative "Hermes" is occupied by the Sanger aerospace system, developed in the mid-1980s in Germany. The first stage in it was a hypersonic booster aircraft with combined turbo-ramjet engines. After reaching 4-5 speeds of sound, either the manned aerospace plane "Horus" or the disposable cargo stage "Kargus" were launched from his back. However, this project did not come out of the "paper" stage, mainly for financial reasons.

The American NASP project was introduced by President Reagan in 1986 as the National Aerospace Plane Program. This single-stage apparatus, which was often called the "Orient Express" in the press, had fantastic flight characteristics. They were provided by ramjets with supersonic combustion, which, according to experts, could operate at Mach numbers from 6 to 25. However, the project ran into technical problems and was closed in the early 1990s.

The Soviet "Buran" was presented in the domestic (and foreign) press as an absolute success. However, having made a single unmanned flight on November 15, 1988, this ship sank into oblivion. To be fair, I must say that Buran turned out to be no less perfect than the Space Shuttle. And in terms of safety and versatility of use, it even surpassed the overseas competitor. Unlike the Americans, Soviet specialists had no illusions about the cost-effectiveness of a reusable system - calculations showed that a one-time missile was more effective. But when Buran was created, the main aspect was different - the Soviet shuttle was developed as a military space system. With the ending " cold war”This aspect faded into the background, which cannot be said about economic feasibility. But with it, the Buran was in a bad way: its launch was treated like the simultaneous launch of a couple of hundred Soyuz launch vehicles. The fate of "Buran" was decided.

Pros and cons

Despite the fact that new programs for the development of reusable ships are mushrooming after rain, so far none of them have been successful. The projects mentioned above by Hermes (France, ESA), HOTOL (Great Britain) and Sanger (Germany) ended in nothing. "Hanging" between eras MAKS is a Soviet-Russian reusable aerospace system. Failed and the NASP (National Aerospace Plane) and RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle) programs - the next attempts by the United States to create a second-generation ITX to replace the Space Shuttle. What is the reason for this unenviable constancy?

MAKS, USSR / Russia, since 1985. Reusable air launch system, horizontal landing. Takeoff weight - 620 tons, second stage (with fuel tank) - 275 tons, orbital aircraft - 27 tons. Crew - 2 people, payload - up to 8 tons. According to developers (NPO Molniya), MAKS is the closest to implementation of the project of a reusable ship

Compared to a single-use launch vehicle, the creation of a "classic" reusable transport system is extremely expensive. By themselves, the technical problems of reusable systems are solvable, but the cost of solving them is very high. Increasing the frequency of use sometimes requires a very significant increase in weight, which leads to an increase in cost. To compensate for the increase in mass, ultra-lightweight and ultra-strong (and more expensive) structural and heat-shielding materials, as well as engines with unique parameters, are taken (and often invented from scratch). And the use of reusable systems in the field of poorly studied hypersonic speeds requires significant costs for aerodynamic research.

And yet this does not mean at all that reusable systems, in principle, cannot pay off. The position changes with a large number of starts. Let's say the cost of developing a system is $ 10 billion. Then, with 10 flights (without the cost of inter-flight service), one launch will be attributed to the development cost of $ 1 billion, and with a thousand flights - only 10 million! However, due to the general reduction in the "space activity of mankind", one can only dream of such a number of launches ... So, it is possible to give up on reusable systems? Not everything is so simple here.

First, the growth of "civilization's space activity" is not excluded. The new market for space tourism gives certain hopes. Perhaps, at first, small and medium-sized ships of the "combined" type (reusable versions of "classic" disposable), such as the European Hermes or, which is closer to us, the Russian Clipper, will be in demand. They are relatively simple, they can be launched into space with conventional (including, possibly already available) disposable launch vehicles. Yes, such a scheme does not reduce the cost of delivering cargo into space, but it allows one to reduce the costs of the mission as a whole (including removing the burden of serial production of ships from the industry). In addition, winged vehicles can drastically reduce the overloads acting on astronauts during descent, which is an undoubted advantage.

Secondly, which is especially important for Russia, the use of reusable winged stages makes it possible to remove restrictions on the launch azimuth and reduce the cost of exclusion zones allocated for the fall fields of carrier rockets fragments.

Clipper, Russia, since 2000. A new spacecraft under development with a reusable cabin for delivering crew and cargo to low-earth orbit and an orbital station. Vertical launch with a Soyuz-2 rocket, horizontal or parachute landing. The crew is 5-6 people, the launch weight of the spacecraft is up to 13 tons, the landing weight is up to 8.8 tons. The expected date of the first manned orbital flight is 2015.

Hypersonic engines
Some experts consider hypersonic ramjet engines (scramjet engines), or, as they are more often called, ramjet engines with supersonic combustion, to be the most promising type of propulsion systems for reusable aerospace aircraft with horizontal takeoff. The design of the engine is extremely simple - it has neither a compressor nor a turbine. The air flow is compressed by the surface of the apparatus, as well as in a special air intake. Typically, the only moving part of the engine is the fuel pump.

The main feature of the scramjet engine is that at flight speeds six or more times the speed of sound, the air flow does not have time to decelerate in the intake tract to subsonic speed, and combustion must take place in a supersonic flow. And this presents certain difficulties - usually the fuel does not have time to burn in such conditions. For a long time it was believed that the only fuel suitable for a scramjet engine was hydrogen. True, encouraging results have been obtained recently with fuels such as kerosene.

Despite the fact that hypersonic engines have been studied since the mid-1950s, not a single full-size flight model has yet been manufactured: the complexity of calculating gas-dynamic processes at hypersonic speeds requires expensive full-scale flight experiments. In addition, heat-resistant materials are needed that are resistant to oxidation when high speeds as well as an optimized scramjet fuel supply and cooling system in flight.

A significant drawback of hypersonic engines is that they cannot work from the start, the apparatus must be accelerated to supersonic speeds with other, for example, conventional turbojet engines. And, of course, the scramjet engine only works in the atmosphere, so a rocket engine is needed to enter orbit. The need to put several engines on one vehicle significantly complicates the design of an aerospace aircraft.

Multifaceted multiplicity

The options for constructive implementation of reusable systems are very diverse. When discussing them, one should not be limited only to ships, it must be said about reusable carriers - reusable cargo space transport systems (MTKS). Obviously, in order to reduce the cost of developing the MTCS, it is necessary to create unmanned vehicles and not overload them with redundant, like a shuttle, functions. This will significantly simplify and facilitate the design.

From the point of view of ease of operation, single-stage systems are the most attractive: theoretically, they are much more reliable than multistage systems, they do not require any exclusion zones (for example, the VentureStar project, created in the USA under the RLV program in the mid-1990s). But their implementation is "on the verge of the possible": to create such, it is required to reduce the relative mass of the structure by at least a third compared to modern systems... However, even two-stage reusable systems can have quite acceptable operational characteristics if you use the winged first stages, which are returned to the launch site in an airplane-like manner.

In general, the MTKS in the first approximation can be classified according to the methods of launch and landing: horizontal and vertical. It is often thought that horizontal launch systems have an advantage because they do not require complex launch facilities. However, modern airfields are not capable of receiving vehicles weighing more than 600-700 tons, and this significantly limits the capabilities of horizontal launch systems. In addition, it is difficult to imagine a space system fueled by hundreds of tons of cryogenic propellants among civilian airliners taking off and landing on schedule. And if we take into account the requirements for the noise level, it becomes obvious that separate high-class airfields will still have to be built for launch vehicles with horizontal launch. So the horizontal takeoff here has no significant advantages over the vertical takeoff. On the other hand, taking off and landing vertically, you can abandon the wings, which greatly facilitates and reduces the cost of the structure, but at the same time complicates an accurate landing approach and leads to an increase in overloads during descent.

Both traditional liquid-propellant rocket engines (LPRE) and various variants and combinations of air-jet engines (WRM) are considered as propulsion systems of the MTKS. Among the latter there are turbo-direct-flow ones, which can accelerate the apparatus "from standstill" to a speed corresponding to the Mach number 3.5-4.0, direct-flow ones with subsonic combustion (operate from M = 1 to M = 6), direct-flow ones with supersonic combustion (from M = 6 to M = 15, and according to the optimistic estimates of American scientists, even up to M = 24) and direct-flow rocket capable of functioning in the entire range of flight speeds - from zero to orbital.

Jet engines are an order of magnitude more economical than rocket engines (due to the absence of an oxidizer on board the vehicle), but at the same time they have an order of magnitude higher specific gravity, as well as very serious restrictions on speed and flight altitude. For the rational use of the air-jet engine, it is required to fly at high velocity heads, while protecting the structure from aerodynamic loads and overheating. That is, saving fuel - the cheapest component of the system - WFDs increase the mass of the structure, which is much more expensive. Nevertheless, the WFD is likely to find application in relatively small reusable horizontal launch vehicles.

The most realistic, that is, simple and relatively cheap to develop, are perhaps two types of systems. The first is of the type of the already mentioned "Clipper", in which only the manned, reusable winged vehicle (or most of it) turned out to be fundamentally new. Although small dimensions create certain difficulties in terms of thermal protection, they reduce development costs. The technical problems for such devices have practically been resolved. So Clipper is a step in the right direction.

The second is vertical launch systems with two cruise missile stages that can independently return to the launch site. No special technical problems are expected during their creation, and a suitable launching complex can probably be selected from among those already built.

Summing up, we can assume that the future of reusable space systems will not be cloudless. They will have to defend their right to exist in a harsh struggle against primitive, but reliable and cheap one-time missiles.

Dmitry Vorontsov, Igor Afanasiev

On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 am Moscow time, a few tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan, at the Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome, an intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was launched, in the nose compartment of which the manned Vostok spacecraft with Air Force Major Yuri was located Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was launched into an orbit with an inclination of 65 °, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km, and made one orbit around the Earth in 89 minutes. On the 108th minute after launch, he returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov region.

The Vostok spacecraft was created by a group of scientists and engineers under the leadership of the founder of practical cosmonautics, SP Korolev. The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent vehicle, which is also an astronaut's cabin, was a sphere with a diameter of 2.3 m, covered with an ablative (melting when heated) material for thermal protection when entering the atmosphere. The ship was controlled automatically, as well as by the astronaut. During the flight, radio communication with the Earth was continuously maintained. An astronaut in a spacesuit was placed in an airplane-type ejection seat equipped with parachute system and communication equipment. In the event of an accident, small rocket motors at the base of the chair fired it through a circular hatch. The atmosphere of the ship is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen under a pressure of 1 atm (760 mm Hg).

The manned compartment (descent vehicle) was attached to the instrument compartment using metal straps. All equipment not directly required in the descent vehicle was located in the instrument compartment. It contained cylinders of a life support system with nitrogen and oxygen, chemical batteries for a radio installation and instruments, a braking propulsion system (TDU) to reduce the speed of the spacecraft during the transition to a descent trajectory from orbit, and small orientation engines. "Vostok-1" had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg.

The calculation of the trajectory of the return of the spacecraft "Vostok" to the Earth was carried out with the help of a computer, the necessary commands were transmitted to the spacecraft by radio. The attitude thrusters ensured the appropriate angle of entry of the spacecraft into the atmosphere. Upon reaching the desired position, the braking propulsion system was activated, and the ship's speed decreased. Then the fire bolts tore apart the straps connecting the descent vehicle with the instrument compartment, and the descent vehicle began its "fiery dive" into the Earth's atmosphere. At an altitude of about 7 km, the entrance hatch was shot back from the descent vehicle and the chair with the cosmonaut was ejected. The parachute was opened, after a while the chair was dropped so that the astronaut would not hit it upon landing. Gagarin was the only Vostok cosmonaut who remained in the descent vehicle until landing and did not use the ejection seat. All subsequent cosmonauts flying on the Vostok spacecraft ejected. The descent vehicle of the Vostok spacecraft landed separately on its own parachute.

SCHEME OF THE SPACE SHIP "VOSTOK-1"

"Vostok-1"
1 Antenna for the command radio link system.
2 Communication antenna.
3 Cover for electrical connectors
4 Entrance hatch.
5 Container with food.
6 Tie straps.
7 Ribbon antennas.
8 Brake motor.
9 Communication antennas.
10 Service hatches.
11 Instrument compartment with main systems.
12 Ignition wiring.
13 Pneumatic cylinders (16 pcs.)
for the life support system.
14 Ejection seat.
15 Radio antenna.
16 Porthole with optical reference.
17 Technological hatch.
18 Television camera.
19 Heat shield made of ablative material.
20 Block of electronic equipment.

This ship had two main compartments: a descent vehicle with a diameter of 2.3 m and an instrument compartment. The control system is automatic, but the cosmonaut could transfer control to himself. With his right hand, he could orient the ship using a hand control device. With his left hand, he could turn on the emergency switch, which dropped the access hatch and activated the ejection seat. A cutout in the nose cone of the launch vehicle allowed the astronaut to leave the spacecraft in the event of a launch vehicle accident. When the spherical descent vehicle returned to the atmosphere, its position was automatically corrected. With an increase in air pressure, the descent vehicle took the correct position.

Booster rockets
The Vostok 2 ½-stage launch vehicle was created on the basis of a Soviet ICBM.
Its height together with the spacecraft is 38.4 m.
"Mercury-Atlas" is also a modification of the intercontinental ballistic missile, had a total height of 29 m.
In both rockets, the fuel is liquid oxygen and kerosene.

The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which its safety for human flight was announced. Between May 15, 1960 and March 25, 1961, these spaceships were launched into orbit called a satellite ship. They housed dogs, mannequins and various biological objects. Four of these vehicles had returnable capsules with astronaut seats mounted in them. Three were returned. The last two spacecraft of the series, before entering the atmosphere, performed, like Vostok-1, one orbit around the Earth. Others completed 17 turns, like Vostok-2.