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Further Reading

Tu-121

The Tu-121 was a Mach 3 intermediate range cruise missile that was tested in 1958-1960 before cancellation. The TU-121 was a strategic unmanned aircraft-missile. The aircraft-missile of surface - to - surface' class designed for long flight at speed of 2700 km/h at altitude up to 25000 m which structure and equipment were affected by heat barrier. The first start was on the 26-th of August, 1959. Two more successful test flights were made. Produced in small series to be used when trying out of TU-123 Hawk unmanned reconnaissance a/c representing a further development of 121.

At the end of 1957 TUPOLEV Design Bureau appointed a group of specialists to start activities on unmanned air vehicle. The activities were headed by Alexey A.Tupolev. The work started without formal orders making no special publicity. It was not a passion with popular subject - from the very beginning the new tenor of advanced aviation was treated seriously. First of all it can be explained by increased requirements to aviation development in accordance with state-of -the-art level of that times. Certainly there was a rational attitude to application of aircraft capable to operate without pilot saving his life. Absence of the pilot in an air vehicle immediately puts much more severe requirements to such aircraft characteristics as G-force, altitude, vibration, temperature and some others.

To-day it does not matter how the DB started working on the new trend of aviation - wether it was done under Government Decree or in Andrey Tupolev initiative supported by the higher authorities. By the way, at that time the DB performed many investigations in various trends of aviation. Andrey Tupolev appealed to Commandment of Army and to Government with issues on many of these investigations. It was normal way of working at that time. In 1957-1958 Alexey A.Tupollev together with his assistant Victor Saharov elaborated a structure of new division, gathered the backbone of the collective, defined key trend of work. And the work started in full swing. The core of the team was composed of V.Blizniuk, Y.Orlov, N.Kozlov, V.Andreev, A. Davtian, A.Kochrgin, G.Cheriomuhin, A.Kaandalov, S.Svirskiy, B.Saharov, B.Stoma, V.Ryabenko, G.Polezhaev, Y.Shumilov, G.Gofbaauer, B.Grozdov, L.Lanovskiy, V.Kulinskiy. All of them were emplyees of our Design Bureau and rather young people. Said division was a part of the DB and was designated by index "K".

The first task of said new collective was building of unmanned strike aircraft of strategic purpose (TU-121, "C" aircraft). This was unusual work for the DB. It was not because of complexity of the air vehicle itself having rather high technical characteristics : booster-rocket launching at takeoff equal to 35 t, cruise flight at the speed up to 2700 km/h at the altitude of 22000 m and range of 4000 km. When work started the most unusual were the requirements to combat application of the air vehicle and operation. Complex composed of several air vehicles and aids of ground support had to be completely autonomous and capable to leave their bases independently, to operate from unprepared fields maintaining combat condition. It was necessary to solve problems of no aviation nature which were not considered in the DB previously. Management of the division had to arrange new services, to establish business links with non-aviation organizations.

Designing of the air vehicle itself also raised a number of technical questions. Such as selection and test of unusual aerodynamic layout, heat demand, especially of radio-equipment, development of autopilot system that provided both stabilization of the air vehicle and capability to fly along preprogrammable path. It was necessary to build multimode short service life turbojet engine that operates at reheat power, to design air intake that provides engine operation both under sub-sonic and supersonic conditions. There also were questions regarding fuel system functioning in view of in-flight fuel heating and some other problems. Airframe skin temperature in flight was equal to 100-120oC. Total start thrust is 160 tf at operating boosters and reheat power main turbojet engine. So there were many issues difficult from technical point of view. And the collective began to solve them.

It should be noted that Alexey A.Tupolev showed himself worth as manager of the project. He always showed high capacity for work. He worked 10-12 hours a day being in contact with specialists substantially all the time.

The astronavigation system was derived from that developed for Burya, built by NII-1 MAP under V G Chachikiyan. The missile was carried on an ST-10 mobile launch trailer, with the wings removed for transport. The astronavigation system would engage five minutes after launch. The missile would already have covered 200 to 300 km of range before reaching its cruise altitude. The missile would pitch over at the target into a dive at a 55 degree angle. The thermonuclear warhead would detonate at 2 km altitude. In the event of any deviation from the planned course, an internal destruct system would destroy the missile. The Tu-121 was to have been equipped with a '205' nuclear weapon built by NII-1011, with a total mass of 3 tonnes. Its AP-85 autopilot used the Zemlya-AI astro-navigation system. The RAT-52 launch stage used two PRD-52 solid rockets for zero-length boost from the launch trailer.

Five prototypes were built; the first fuselage was completed in June 1958 and the first prototype was completed in late 1958 at Yauz. Launcher tests were conducted in the winter of 1958-1959 at the NIIAS test center near Moscow. The first launch with an incomplete system was conducted on 31 December 1958 (thereby fulfilling the decree schedule). In 1959 the first full prototype was delivered to Vladimirovka, followed by the first unsuccessful launch attempt on 25 August 1959. A total of four flight tests had been completed when a decree of February 1960 cancelled all further work on winged long-range missiles. A total of seven cruise stages were completed at the time the project was cancelled. However the Tu-121 was elaborated into the Tu-133 intercontinental cruise missile design, which in turn was the basis for the DRB-1 Yastreb trisonic target drone, which did reach production.

Works on large-range unmanned strike aircraft which started in 1958 were stopped in 1960 defining a basis for activities on unmanned reconnaissance aircraft "Yastreb"-DBR-1. Said works were successfully completed in 1964. From 1965 DBR-1 complex entered serial production. The aircraft had unique characteristics for that time. It was completely autonomous for combat missions and data acquisition and processing.