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Soviet Era Rocket Engines

SOVIET ROCKET ENGINES

Even though the Soviet Union has not disclosed an overall nomenclature system for

its launching vehicles, it has identified some of the individual rocket engines, such as the RD-107, RD-108, RD-119, etc. Some of these have been displayed in Soviet exhibitions outside the Soviet Union and are on permanent display, with placards giving their characteristics, in the Moscow Museum of Industry. In addition, a rocket engine museum is maintained in the lonnovskiy ravelin of the Petropavlovsk Fortress in Leningrad where historic engines of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory Experimental Design Bureau (GDL-OKB) are on display. The chief designer of the GDL-OKB, Academician Valentin P. Glushko, has been a principal source of information about Soviet rocket engines. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the GDL he produced a booklet on the development of rocketry and space technology in the Soviet Union giving some details of performance and pictures of the RD-107, RD-119, and RD-214 engines. (29) A second booklet, in 1975, gave more details and also showed pictures of the RD-219 and RD-108 engines. (30) Expected for the last year or so, but not available as of December 31, 1981 is a new encyclopedia with fresh disclosures by Glushko. Glushko has always alluded to there being newer developments he has not been allowed to write about. Apparently Kosberg and Isayev (the latter now deceased) have not published about their engines, and Glushko has only alluded to

their work without specifying performances.

Details were given for the RD-216 and RD-253 engines in 1976 in a NASA Technical Translation of Liquid Rocket Space Engines, by Bychkov, Nazarov and Prischepa. (31)

Table 17 summarizes the data available on Soviet space-related rocket engines.

UPPER STAGES

These are the stages which go into orbit along with the payload(s) from each launch. The Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, has gradually evolved its interpretation of these objects over the years. Their estimates are based upon study of photographs and published Soviet data, radar and optical signatures, decay rates, and performance studies made by Western analysts.

 References:

A. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1976-80, SUPPORTING VEHICLES AND LAUNCH VEHICLES, POLITICAL GOALS AND PURPOSES, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SPACE, ADMINISTRATION, RE-SOURCE 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.

29. Glushko, V. P. Development of Rocketry and Space Technology in the U.S.S.R., Novosti, Moscow, 1973.

30. Glushko, V. P. Rocket Engines GDL-OKB, Novosti, Moscow, 1975.

31. Bychkov, V. N., G. A. Nazarov and V. I. Prischepa, NASA Technical Translation, NASA TT, F-17503, Washington, D.C.