Tsyklon
OVERVIEW, SUPPORTING FACILITIES AND LAUNCH VEHICLES OF THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM
By Dr. Charles S. Sheldon II
1971-1975
THE MILITARY COMBAT SPACE VEHICLE ("F")Tsyklon 2/SL-10(FOBS), SL-11, Tsyklon 3/SL-11 Series
The cumbersome SS-6 Sapwood ICBM represented a beginning for the Soviet continental missile stockpile, but its use of cryogenics and awkward shape for potential silo use must have indicated fairly early that despite its continuing usefulness for space, it was not especially good for missile purposes, unless these were first strike. In a 1967 article in Red Star, General Tolubko stated that these surface launches of the [Sapwood] took a long time to prepare and that later version rockets were smaller and placed in silos. (19)
As Soviet missile capabilities improved, they conducted more and more tests at the principal test site of Tyuratam which extended to the Kamchatka target areas, and then beyond to the mid-Pacific. These flights were often protested by the Japanese when target area closures were announced by the Russians. Photographs released by the United Sates Government of Soviet missile tracking ships in mid-Pacific and even of splashes of reentry bodies suggested that the United States was monitoring Soviet tests in the same way that
Soviet ships monitor U.S. missile tests. The Russians have always described these Pacific tests as further tests of carrier rockets, often signaling through variation in the language that new models were coming into the test program, rather than just continuation of earlier series. The observations made of the flights suggest they have definitely been tests of military missiles, not space carrier rockets as such. Every so often in the past, Soviet military leaders made specific reference to the high accuracy with which these tests delivered the "penultimate" stage of the carrier rockets to the assigned area.
As Table 1-11 summarizes, the Western powers have assigned SS designators up through the SS-20 so far, and there are NATO code names for most but not all of these, depending on whether they have been available on display or pictured in clear photographs. Of the longer range missiles, the SS-4, SS-5, and SS-6 have already been discussed in the context of their adaptation to space flight. At one time the SS-7 Saddler made up a large part of the Soviet missile inventory, but it was never put into a Moscow parade, and so far as can be judged was not adapted for space use. It was apparently a fairly modest capacity ICBM, which may have been the missile once shown in a rather blurred film clip from a Soviet movie and pictured on the cover of Missiles and Rockets magazine, in the United States. The SS-8 Sasin (now known as the R-26 never deployed, not the real SS-8 Sasin, R-9) was paraded in Moscow for a number of years, as the first Soviet ICBM ever given such public exposure. It seems never to have played a very prominent part in the inventory, but did become operational. According to U.S. Department of Defense testimony before Congress, the SS-11 replaced the SS-7 as the principal part of the Soviet ICBM inventory. Despite its extensive use, it has not been paraded in Moscow until after 1975, and it does not seem to have come into space use. Having been hidden so carefully, it lacked any publicly known NATO code name until quite recently, but it is now called Sego. It was also of relatively modest capacity.
Three other ICBM class missiles have been paraded in Moscow. These are the SS-9, SS-10, and SS-13. Taking them in reverse order, the SS-13 Savage is the technological equivalent of a Minuteman. But the Russians seem not to have favored solid propellant missiles for long range missile or space launch use. Some observers have said this is because their chemistry has not kept up with the same state of the art attained in the United States. In general, the Russians have moved from the early cryogenic systems to storable liquid propellants. The SS-10 Scrag was first paraded in May 1965 and has not been seen since1971. Scrag the GR-1 as we now know it was never fully flight tested or deployed and became a cancelled program. It was a long, cigar shaped three-stage rocket described by the Russians as "akin" to the Vostok launcher (which was then still two years away from its first public unveiling). The stages were joined by open truss sections. The Russians also hinted that this vehicle was capable of putting a bomb in orbit for delivery to any place on Earth. In November 1965, when it was paraded again, the Russians were a little defensive in their comments stressing it did not violate any treaty restrictions on use of space weapons because such agreements prohibited their use, not their production. Further, they said in a sense, every ICBM is a space weapon, anyway, as all such missiles fly through space and their use is permitted under the terms of the space treaty.
Use as a Weapons Carrier. F-l-r
Tsyklon – SL-10, FOBS
When Soviet test flights of fractional orbit bombardment systems (FOBS, see Chapter Six) began in 1966, unofficial Western observers wondered if they were seeing the SS-10 Scrag being flown. Later, the U.S. Department of Defense credited the FOBS flights to the SS-9 Scarp with added stages. Apparently the SS-10 Scrag never entered the operational inventory. It was paraded again in May 1966 and November 1966. The same brief description of its orbital use continued. However, when it was paraded in November 1967, no reference was made to an orbital capacity, and in the parade appeared for the first time the SS-9 Scarp. The TASS report on this new SS-9 was:
The last to appear were mammoth rockets each of which can deliver to target nuclear warheads of tremendous power .... These rockets can be used for intercontinental and orbital launchings. (20)
The SS-9 has indeed become an important element in the Soviet arsenal, and in retrospect it is possible to trace its further extension to use in the space program as well, for missions closely allied with military functions, but not the more civilian and scientific part of the space program.
In December 1965, the Russians announced rocket tests which they called tests of "landing systems" with "some elements'' falling in the Pacific (staging, not payloads), which fitted the operational pattern of FOBS flights which came later. In November 1966, General Dankevich associated orbital rockets with silo launches, and said these vehicles carried very large warheads." Secretary Laird in the United States stated that the SS-9 Scarp was the carrier of the FOBS system. (22)
The SS-9 Scarp was paraded as a 33.2-35 meter long, bottle-shaped rocket, with a principal diameter of 3 meters. In the parade the warhead section was about 1.15 meters in diameter, then expanding into a cone to join the main 3 meter diameter cylinder. It is hard to tell precisely whether the SS-9 Scarp as paraded was a two or three stage vehicle. It may have been divided at about 17.5-19.7 meters up from the base, with perhaps another 10.4-8.5 meters making up the second stage, and 5.3 meters making up either a third stage with warhead or simply a warhead.
Since for two years the SS-10 Scrag was described as an orbital weapon, it is possible that the third stage of that vehicle was transferred to the SS-9 Scarp for a further version which has not been pictured or put on display. In some of its space uses, a fourth (third) stage is also required, to account for the patterns of debris or expended rocket casings which can be observed in flight.
Our interest in this rocket in the context of this report is as a military space payload carrier, the F-l-r or F-l-m. We cannot say what the whole assemblage looks like today through 1975. From parade views, we know the first stage is quite different from the A class vehicles. While the A class uses a core with four strap-on boosters, for a total of 20 nozzles, the F class first stage shows 6 nozzles visible, while a plate covers the center part of the base, which could hide a seventh central nozzle.
The first known space use of the system-was for FOBS tests, apparently in a four (three) stage version. The first stage is sub orbital. A carrier rocket stage, whether (second) stage or third stage is not clear, is abandoned in the initial orbit attained. The Royal Aircraft Establishment gives its dimensions as 8 meters long by 2.5 meters in diameter. In flight, a further change in orbit occurs, and this places an orbital platform in still another position. It is from this latter object that retrofire occurs (hence the designator "r" symbolizing the retro fire fourth (third) stage) which drives the warhead back to Earth, while the rest of the orbiting hardware continues in space for at least a few more orbits.
Reference
1. SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS, 1971-75, OVERVIEW, FACILITIES AND HARDWARE MANNED AND UNMANNED FLIGHT PROGRAMS, BIOASTRONAUTICS CIVIL AND MILITARY APPLICATIONS PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE PLANS, STAFF REPORT , THE COMMITTEE ON AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE .SCIENCES, UNITED STATES SENATE, BY THE SCIENCE POLICY RESEARCH DIVISION CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, VOLUME – I, AUGUST 30, 1976, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1976,
19. Tolubko, V. F. Strategic Intercontinental. . . Kragnaya Zvezda, Moscow. November 18, 1967, P.1A.
20. TASS, Moscow, 0710 GMT, November 7 1967
21. Dankevich, P. E., Interview on Moscow Radio, 1430 GMT, November 18,1966
22. Laird, Melvin R., Fiscal year 1971 Defense Program and Budget, February 20 1970p. 103.
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