The Very Heavy Launch Vehicle
Perhaps the most elusive space launch vehicle in the Soviet collection was their very heavy system. The need for such a system was highly compelling if the Russians have been serious in their interest in both manned lunar flight and later manned planetary flight. They have talked a great deal about orbital assembly of orbital stations and deep space-manned craft, but the actual use of orbital assembly has not kept pace with the talk and rumors of what they may be planning to do. Some of these possibilities will be discussed in other volumes of this study.
While orbital assembly was seen by Soviet space officials as the ultimate technique for many advanced missions, the availability of a large launch vehicle would serve Soviet interests at an earlier date in the same way the Saturn V was of use to the United States. Even when assembly was commonplace, putting up some heavy and complex components with a large launch vehicle has advantages.
Over the years, the Russians have taken some special pride in building large aircraft, hydroelectric dams, drag lines, battle tanks, and artillery. They have in the past stressed their leadership in high payload weights in space. One can imagine that a very large space launch vehicle would find a place in their hardware development. However, because they have treated all space propulsion details as sensitive information, they usually have waited some years after launch vehicles became operational before revealing details about them. This has been evident in the text of this chapter. Consequently, it was very difficult to find specific Soviet statements about a very large vehicle.
In the United States, however, there were statements by the most senior NASA officials through 1970 that such a Soviet very heavy lift vehicle was under development. Indeed, it was even described as having the general capacity of the Saturn V. Depending upon what assumptions one makes about upper stage efficiency, its lift capacity for several missions can be variously estimated. If it was originally intended to fly during the late 1960's, it can be speculated that perhaps some or all of the stages of D-l-e vehicle related to Proton, Zond, deep space, and Salyut payloads, would represent a shortcut way to attain an earlier operational capability. This would be akin to the U.S. use of the S-IVB stage on Saturn V or the Centaur stage on Titan III. Since the D-l-e vehicle does not demonstrate the kind of lifting efficiency associated with high energy fuels, it can be speculated the G-l-e heavy lift vehicle will also fall short of its full potential in early use. The NASA estimates about the Soviet vehicle put the first stage thrust in the range of 4.5 to 6.35 thousand metric tons,
compared with 3.4 thousand metric tons of the Saturn V. But without high energy fuels, that might mean a capacity to deliver about the same 45,500 kilograms to the vicinity of the Moon which a Saturn V typically will send.
How reliable can such estimates be? That was hard to say for a vehicle which the Russians have not discussed in specific terms, and which in any case was too big to be paraded. But since the "national technical means" which are used to count Soviet missile silos and slight differences in their dimensions are freely cited by Secretaries of Defense, one has to assume that this Nation should have a fair idea of the scope of work associated with such a postulated large vehicle.
The Russians themselves have thoroughly obscured the issue of whether in fact such a vehicle exists. Some have praised the economy of orbital assembly over direct flights to the Moon with a big vehicle. On November 12, 1965 Cosmonaut Nikolayev stated in a Soviet radio interview that studies were underway to see whether manned flights into deep space should be solely through orbital assembly or also through use of a large vehicle for direct flights. By July 1966, a Czech commentator, Jan Petranek, was talking in terms of a 100,000-kilogram-payload ship. (56) In March 1967, General Kamanin, the leader of the cosmonaut corps was predicting flights to the Moon of payloads in the 60,000 to 70,000 kilogram range. (57) This might have meant through orbital assembly, but if based upon use of high energy fuel in upper stages would scale well with the 4.5 to 6.35 thousand metric ton thrust first stage for the G class vehicles, since a Saturn V at 3.4 thousand metric tons thrust would deliver 45,500 kilograms on a similar mission.
One of the most specific forecasts of a very large Soviet vehicle was written by Karel Pacner of Czechoslovakia in the October 4, 1967 issue of the Prague magazine Student, in which he specifically credited Cosmonaut Popovich and General Kamanin as saying the very large vehicle was under preparation, that is, a vehicle well ahead of the D class. By October 1967, Cosmonaut Feoktistov, who as a senior official of the space design bureau, was quoted in Pravda as forecasting deep space flights using both the approach of Earth orbital assembly and direct from the surface of the Earth with (large) vehicles. (58) In March 1968 at Frankfurt, Leonid Sedov, the important space academician, stated there were now larger rockets in existence which were used exclusively for space, as opposed to adapted military rockets, and that these could support flights to the Moon and planets. The rocket required for landing on the Moon already existed, he said. (59)
Rumors and cosmonaut predictions of a manned lunar landing by the end of 1969 were prevalent in the first half of that year, and could reasonably have been supported only by flights of a large vehicle. It was hard to conclude the Russians were really ready for such a mission on the basis of public evidence, although some surprising development might have
made if feasible. Alternatively, the Soviet predictions of that spring may have garbled plans for manned orbital flight around the Moon and also the automated return to Earth of lunar samples gathered by remotely controlled devices, rather than referring realistically to manned lunar landings that early. In any case, no successful flights of the big vehicle were accomplished, and the American press by early fall was repeating stories of uncertain origin that there had been a failure (or failures) of the big vehicle. It was obvious that hopes for any manned operations, whatever the missions, in 1969 were not met, including any time-competitive flight to rival Apollo 11, or any follow on American flight if Apollo 11 had failed.
The next Soviet reference to a potentially large vehicle was by Academician Boris Petrov in August 1969 that a new type of vehicle would be used to place a large unmanned space station in orbit, that it was not necessary to send men to the Moon when automatic devices could perform the mission of bringing home rocks. He said that up to four Soyuz craft could then dock with this large new space station. While talking of ultimate flight to the Moon, he claimed that Luna 15 could not carry a man, but that the Zond class could; and further that some flights would be direct to the Moon. (60)
The most recent official U.S. statement on the large vehicle comes in the Department of Defense's booklet, Soviet Military Power. (61) Commenting on apparent Soviet interest in developing an improved ASAT it says:
A very large space booster similar in performance to the Apollo program's Saturn V was under development and will have the capability to launch very heavy payloads into orbit, including even larger and more capable laser weapons. This booster was estimated to have six-to-seven times the launch weight capability of the Space Shuttle.
. . . The new booster will be capable of putting very large permanently manned space stations into orbit. . . .
From these many speculative statements and inferences of the logic of how to achieve missions the Russians have repeatedly claimed were encompassed within their interest, it seems possible to postulate at least two versions of the large vehicle: One would be G-l-e, intended for flight to the Moon; the other would be the G-l, intended for launching a space station core into Earth orbit. Later versions might substitute high energy fuel upper stages enhancing the performance over the levels estimated to be similar to the Saturn V.
One can speculate that any direct flight to the Moon with men would be beyond the capability of the G-l-e as described, since the Saturn V could not do this. Either a rendezvous operation would be required, or the G-l-e would have to be up-rated with high energy fuels, to make it the equivalent of the one-time NASA design concept called Nova. Some of these possibilities will be explored in further details in a later volume.
Meanwhile, what has happened to the class G vehicle? Some Western observers doubt that it ever existed. This seems unlikely, considering the need and the NASA official testimony.
Charles P. Vick even drafted a book about this yet unobserved vehicle with his findings summarized in Spaceflight magazine. (62) Vick made extensive studies of the Landsat pictures of the Tyuratam launch area, using pictures taken in several different wavelengths, and he was convinced he can pick out two very large launch pads and a major assembly building which support the G class vehicles. While his studies have tested a variety of hypotheses for various structures which might represent the design of the G class vehicles, it seems the data in the public domain are too scarce to come up with any real insight. Assuming that the vehicle uses some form of clustering as was true of both United States and Soviet vehicles of large size, and further assuming the configuration was anything like the A class vehicles, then the basic stages without escape stage and payload may measure on the order of 80 meters tall and with a base measure of 17 meters, or if there are fins, 21 meters. No one should be misled into thinking that these dimensions are the actual ones; rather, they merely show in terms of tankage how big a vehicle of the A configuration would be if the thrust were around 5.4 thousand metric tons. A 1977 Soviet publication depicted a launch facility with a turning tower more than 100 meters high which could be used to service such a giant vehicle. (63) This moves on bogies round circular railroad tracks.
Vick used this as the basis for a design concept and matched the service levels with dimensions and estimated performance of a G vehicle and came up with a facility with three flame pits. Vick's studies were used by Salamander Books for their Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. A colored drawing of his speculative appearance of the G vehicle was to be found on the foldout pages depicting the launch vehicles of all nations and agencies. (64) Figure 21 was a similar representation along with a cutaway showing probable layout of the tank age. The U.S. Saturn was shown to provide an indication of relative size. Figure 22 shows what the facility might look like when the booster was in place prior to launch. These conceptual drawings are included in the absence of anything more definitive in the open literature, although it must be emphasized that the true appearance may, one day, turn out to be quite different.
Aviation Week has carried a number of times the apparent dates or periods that launch attempts were made with the G class vehicle, all of which failed." If it was true that there have been three failures since the first attempt in 1969, this must have been very disappointing to the program managers. Now, more than 10 years later, a successful flight has not been seen. The program may be as much as 22 years old, and presumably a very heavy investment has been made in assembly, testing, and launch facilities as well as the cost of developing the flight articles. The investment was perhaps almost too much to write off, and future parts of the program depend upon successful development.
This concludes the discussion of launch vehicles which either have been used successfully or there are strong grounds for suspecting have been tested for space purposes.
Predictions for the future will be considered in another chapter. Some Western analysts have postulated a number of additional Soviet space launch vehicles, including one midway between the D and G vehicle sizes, (66) but this chapter has not speculated on vehicles which have not appeared in some form, as even dealing with the "known" vehicles has proven difficult enough.
References:1. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80, SUPPORTING FACILITIES AND LAUNCH VEHICLES, POLITICAL GOALS AND PURPOSES, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACE, ADMINISTRATION, RESOURCE BURDEN, FUTURE OUTLOOK PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF HON. BOB PACKWOOD, Chairman, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, UNITED STATES SENATE, Part 1, Dec. 1982.
55. Clark, P. S., private communication to C. S. Sheldon, February 1981.
56. Petranek, Jan, quoted on Prague Radio, 1530 GMT, July 21,1966 .
57. Kamanin, N., quoted on Warsaw Radio, 1900 GMT, Mar. 9, 1967 .
58. Quoted by Moscow Radio, 0300 GMT, Oct. 3, 1967 .
59. Frankfurt Radio, 2020 GMT, Mar. 20, 1968 .
60. Tokyo Kyodo, 0505 GMT, Aug. 20, 1969 .
61. Soviet Military Power, Washington , D.C. , U.S. Department of Defense, 1981, pp. 79-80.
62. Vick, Charles P. The Soviet Super Boosters—2 London , Spaceflight, March 1974, pp. 94-104.
63. Vol'skiy, A. P., et al. Kosmodrom, Moscow, Veyenizdat Publishing House, 1977, p. 126, fig. 4.23.
64. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology, London, Salamander Books, Ltd., 1981, pp. 52-53.
65. Aviation Week, New York , Mar. 17, 1975 , p. 71, summarized these failures.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
