Despite the fact that from the standpoint today This project looks like science fiction; in the first half of the 20th century, the Germans were seriously preparing for its implementation. The development of the solar cannon was carried out by scientists located in the research centers of the small village of Hillersleben. More than 150 physicists, designers and talented engineers worked day and night on the most fantastic projects, which in the future could bring Germany absolute military superiority on the battlefield. When Allied troops entered Hillersleben in the spring of 1945, among the technical documentation they found papers on the development of a “solar cannon”. It is noteworthy that the author of this project was a famous German scientist, one of the founders rocket technology Herman Oberth. The most interesting thing is that back in 1929, the scientist, in his book “The Path to Space Flight,” proposed creating a manned orbital station in Earth orbit. In his major work, Orbert prophetically brilliantly described the principles by which today modern orbital stations are assembled from separate blocks. At the same time, the scientist’s initial plans did not include a military component of the station. Orbert just planned to place a concave mirror 100 m in diameter in the orbit of the planet for transmission to Earth solar energy for heating water and rotating turbines of power plants. However, the military, having familiarized themselves with his project, decided otherwise. The scientist was tasked with developing a giant mirror located in space for use as a deadly weapon.
Rocket launch is the most The best way send something or someone to open space. This was made possible by the work of outstanding 20th century pioneers such as Robert Goddard, Sergei Korolev, Hermann Oberth, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Wernher von Braun. However, this is far from the only way be in space.There are several alternative options. They are cheaper and less technologically advanced and the likelihood of an explosion at start is not so high. Some engineers propose a giant tower from which space is a few meters away, while others propose making an elevator directly into space. There are also several other projects in early development, such as the skyhook or the massive electromagnetic motor.
All of them are very complex, but technically feasible. There is actually another simple option...
Why not launch cargo into space from giant cannon?
Proponents of this idea argue that such a school fantasy could save us fuel, money and materials. They called the idea "space gun".
Newton's cannonball
Newton worked out this concept in his “Treatise on the System of the World” back in 1728. In it, he performs a thought experiment where a cannon is placed on the very high point, where gravity is very low and there is no air resistance. It is from there that Newton wants to shoot the cannonball into space.
With gravity, the projectile's path depends on its initial speed: it will either fall back to Earth, remain in Earth orbit, or fly off into outer space. To implement the last scenario, you will need quite high speed.
Imagine that the peak of a mountain is above earth's atmosphere. Imagine that a cannon is located on the top of this mountain and shoots horizontally. Since more and more charge is spent with each salvo, the projectile will fall to the Earth further and further from the mountain.
Finally, having reached a certain speed, the cannonball will not fall to the Earth, but will make a full revolution. Having reached a sufficiently high speed, it will rotate in low-Earth orbit, in the absence of resistance from the Earth's atmosphere.
The Colombiad
This travel option is known to many from Jules Verne’s novel “From the Earth to the Moon.” In the novel, astronauts flew to the Moon in a space projectile fired from a cannon from the surface of the Earth.
Verne described in great detail the construction of this enormous cannon, built from 62,000,000 kilograms of iron, smelted in 1,200 furnaces and transported to Florida on 68 barges.
It was a cannon with a 274-meter barrel, two-meter walls and a diameter of three meters.
In the novel, the fictional creator of the cannon addresses his "cannon club":
“I calculated everything down to the smallest detail, there was nothing left that could go unnoticed. According to irrefutable calculations, I believe that a projectile with an initial speed of 12,000 meters per second, directed towards the Moon, will definitely reach it. Therefore, I have the honor to invite you to try out the gun and conduct a test.”
In the end, the projectile launched successfully, but the fate of the three astronauts remained unknown. The story continues in the book “Around the Moon”, the 2nd part of the book.
From the Earth to the Moon inspired many films. For example, in 1967, a British science fiction comedy was released in which a cannon is installed on the slope of a Welsh mountain. And before that, in 1902, the French made a film under original name"Le Voyage dans la Lune." In 2002, this film was noted by the program World Heritage UNESCO. It won't take long to view this creation:
Back to the real world
Oddly enough, the work of the famous novelist was seriously discussed in the highest scientific circles. But the idea of a cannon shell was shattered by the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with his arguments. Today he is considered the father of rocket science.
With his calculations, he explained that not only would the gun have to be very long, but the human body would not be able to withstand such overloads. It is theoretically possible to launch people into space this way, but they will not survive the journey.
Parisian gun.
This idea was forgotten for some time. And the time has come in the First World War. Then German artillery scientists Max Dröger and Fritz Roisenberg proposed using the same principles for siege weapon. That is, their huge cannon was capable of bombing the French capital from a distance of 120 kilometers.
The project did not fire as far as the space gun, but it was the first man-made projectile to reach the stratosphere. Thanks to correct calculations, the projectiles overcame the Coriolis force.
The cannon and plans for its construction were destroyed at the end of the war, and any such weapon was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles.
The war ended, but the French continued to develop a worthy response to such a massive bombardment. One gun could fire several shells at once, and the engineers promised to provide high accuracy. But, unfortunately, the project had not even reached the development stage by the end of the war and all plans were archived. But that wasn't the end for this gun.
In 1940 Nazi troops crossed all of France in search of these drawings, and when in 1942 the search was finally crowned with success, the best German scientific engineers were exiled to artillery foundries.
The Nazis struggled with the problem of the gun's barrel being too long and increasing its range, but huge explosive charges constantly threatened to destroy the gun's barrel.
One of the engineers, Kanders, saw potential in the French plans. In accordance with them, the projectile would accelerate gradually, and would not receive a huge single push. That is, several charges must explode in the cannon one after another. So he received the green light from Albert Speer to create a weapon that could fire at London from the coast of Calais.
V-3 gun.
This became the so-called "Hitler V-3 gun". The V-gun consisted of a V-1 flying bomb, a V-2 rocket (which was later used in NASA's early experiments), and a V-3 cannon.
The V-3 project, codenamed "high pressure pump" (to hide the true plans), included 25 guns located at the Mimoyecques fortress in the Pas-de-Calais region. The first battery was supposed to be ready for firing by March 1944. The guns were supposed to be 105 meters long, should have been directed towards London, and their angle of inclination to the horizons, according to calculations, should have been equal to 50 degrees. The cannons were serviced by an underground railroad and a huge ammunition storage facility.
The Allies knew nothing about the German plans and about the V-2 missiles that were supposed to bomb the British capital daily. They identified the fortress building as the only possible place to install bombing guns and were the first to fire at it.
The fortress was completely destroyed on July 6, 1944 by the famous 617 Squadron, which used bombs with a high penetration coefficient. As a result of the massive bombing, hundreds of workers in underground tunnels were buried alive. And at the end of the war, Churchill ordered the fortress to be razed to the ground; this place is still considered a threat to British lands. The French also did not know about Hitler's plans. Later the castle was restored and now it is a museum
The V-3 project turned out to be unfinished. At the end of 1944, the Germans decided to implement at least some of the ideas from grandiose project, building two 50-meter cannons that were used near the Ruwer River, southeast of Trier.
Providing ammunition for such a weapon was difficult due to the poor condition of the German railways. The first salvos were fired only at the end of December 1944. First high-explosive fragmentation projectile landed on December 30th, the second salvo was fired on January 11th. The gun was not considered effective, since 142 shells killed only 10 people and injured 35. Not a very impressive result for the German Death Star. At the end of the war, the guns were dismantled and sent to the United States for testing. And then, in 1948, they were finally dismantled and melted down.
A new beginning.
After the war, artillery engineering fell asleep, but aviation and the space race received a new impetus. Rocket science has taken center stage in the United States.
And in those days, ideas about more rational way sending people into space.
Gerald was the second to last child of George and Labrossa Bull. After the death of the mother during childbirth and nervous breakdown father, raised him elder sister Bernice. He went to school early and graduated at the age of 16. As a child, he loved to build model airplanes of his own design using balsa wood. And despite his young age, he managed to convince the leaders of the Aviation Technical University in Toronto, take it.
Despite mediocre grades, he was invited to the brand new Institute of Aeronautics thanks to the personal recommendation of its director, Gordon Patterson, who felt that what he lacked in academic talent would be made up for by his energy.
After successfully constructing a supersonic wind tunnel (a rare and advanced device in those days), he graduated in 1950 and moved to work at the Canadian Weapons and Research Institute, where at that time they were researching supersonic technologies, missiles, projectiles and other projects.
On April 1, 1961, he resigned when another dispute broke out with his superiors. The organization's reports stated that "... a violent temperament and strong dislike of the administration, as well as paperwork, led to serious misunderstandings."
But resignation was not a problem. Soon, Bull was hired by McGill University. He quickly transformed the local engineering department into a leading department in the study of aeronautics. Thanks to his work, a ballistics laboratory appeared on the border of the United States and Canada.
Having severed all ties with management, he nevertheless maintained contact with his former colleagues. In a duet with Arthur Trudeau, director of the US Defense Research and Development Center, they explored the possibility of using rocket guns to deliver cargo into space, or at least into Earth's orbit.
Project HARP
The US Navy's battleships are armed with 16-inch guns. Control naval forces paid Bull, Murphy and Trudeau for their reconstruction. Their contract was only $2,000. And the project was called HARP - short for “high altitude research program”.
But several problems arose, one of which was that Bull's research site was not able to withstand new super heavy guns. And the station was moved to Barbados in the Caribbean. This was an ideal solution, firstly, because the close proximity to the equator made it possible to reach the second escape velocity with less resistance, and secondly, an excellent tactical position.
The station had been legally owned by McGill University for a long time, and Bull had to meet with the Prime Minister of Barbados, Errol Barrow, who needed to be convinced of the peaceful purposes of the future station in order to allow another country to build a cannon on his island to launch objects into space.
Barrow extracted $200,000 from Bull by giving the go-ahead for a new space gun. Thus, the nation's impoverished treasury was replenished, and Barrow subsequently acted as the most ardent supporter of this project, which was implemented in Fall Bay, on the south-eastern coast of the island.
The cannon was delivered to the island in the summer of 1962, but due to the unevenness coastline they could not deliver her immediately to the place. Instead, it was unloaded a little further along the coast, and then the plan was to transport it overland. Hundreds of local residents were involved in it. Temporary railway tracks were laid, but only 450 meters of rails were available. And after the train reached the last rail, the track was dismantled and laid further.
By the end of the summer, the cannon was delivered to its destination, where many auxiliary structures were also built. During the preparation of the first test shot, the Cuban missile crisis broke out. Despite the rather peaceful purposes of this station and its remoteness from the center of unrest, the project had to be suspended, since the station could not help but attract the attention of the USSR. Fortunately, everything was resolved peacefully.
Trial test
On January 20, 1963, the first shot rang out. A 315-kilogram projectile made of wood rose to a height of 3000 meters above the surface of the Earth, stayed in the air for 48 seconds and fell a kilometer from the gun. It was a success. After two more test salvos, they began to prepare to fire a real projectile.
This projectile was called Martlet-1. It was named after the mythical bird on the coat of arms of McGill University. Martlet-1 flew 26 kilometers in 145 seconds.
A couple of days later, a second Martlet rocket flew 27 kilometers with a radio transmitter on board that allowed a team of scientists to track the projectile throughout its flight.
But the first tests showed that the gunpowder used in such huge volumes was of poor quality and did not have time to burn completely. The gunpowder was replaced, and in June of that year the world altitude record of 92 kilometers was achieved.
But this was not for simple pleasure, or to play around. The Martlet was equipped with electronics, chemical markers, which at certain altitudes came into action, leaving a smoke trail to measure winds in the upper atmosphere, to measure magnetic fields, etc. Bull later wrote:
“The idea was to study atmospheric processes throughout the day and night. We did meteorological research for the US Army. We want to explore absolutely everything up to an altitude of 200 kilometers, thus getting our money back.”
Funding was increased, which only fueled Bull's interest. He intended to shoot straight into space. Having increased the length of the gun barrel and improved the composition of the gunpowder, on November 18, 1966, Martlet-2 reached an altitude of 180 kilometers, thereby setting a world record that has not been broken by anyone to this day.
The projectile's speed was less than that required to reach low-Earth orbit. Bull intended to continue his idea by designing the more complex Martlet 3 and Martlet 4. These were already miniature rockets with their own engines. But political opposition to the US Army prevailed and banned launches above 100 kilometers. This meant the end of funding from the American government. Hope lay in Canadian dollars.
Public attitudes, media reviews, criticism from the scientific community, and changes in leadership led to budget cuts. Even patriotic arguments, including the erection of a Canadian flag in orbit, could not save the disastrous situation.
This is how the HARP project ended in 1967.
Space Research Corporation.
The governments of both countries wanted to completely dismantle the cannon and all structures, but Bull had an ace up his sleeve. A clause in his contract required the university to return everything test sites upon completion of the project to its original state, which meant the transformation of a large scientific object into a meager land with three palm trees. Millions of dollars were wasted?
Bull proposed a solution: everything he created should become his property. There was nothing else to do but agree. With new resources and no oppressive leadership, Bull founded the Space Exploration Corporation.
The corporation needed money, so it immediately signed a contract with the Canadian and American governments to develop artillery weapons, and launches into space fell into the background for now. Bull served as an artillery consultant throughout the 7th decade of the 20th century. He supplied weapons to the USA, Israel and South Africa. Due to frequent conflicts on the Dark Continent and increased criticism from society, Bull was arrested for illegal arms trafficking. He confessed to the crime and was sentenced to several months in prison instead of the expected fine.
After his release, he moved to Brussels to work with the Chinese People's Republic and Iraq. After a couple of Iraqi weapons projects, he decided it was time to return to his old dreams. In 1988, he managed to convince Saddam Hussein that Iraq would never become a real power without the possibility of space launches. The scientist shared his knowledge of the HARP project and helped build the cannon.
Hussain became interested and gave the green light. As a result, a 156-meter cannon appeared, weighing 2100 tons and with a diameter of 1 meter. It was designed to launch a 2-ton projectile into Earth orbit.
But the Iraqis saw Bull's manic desire to realize his space dreams and, in connection with this, added a condition: Bull pledged to design and develop long-range missiles. This plan was called "Project Babylon."
Project Babylon
The first cannon, called the "child of Babylon", was installed horizontally. Its trunk was 46 meters long. The projectile was fired at a distance of 750 kilometers. The barrel was similar in size to the V-3 cannon that threatened to demolish all of London during World War II. But "Babylon" did not pose a serious threat to Israel, since it was motionless.
The second gun "Big Babylon" was impressive size- as much as 156 meters. It attracted the close attention of the militaries of Iran and Israel, Iraq's longtime rivals. Although the firing from such a weapon was limited, and the shells themselves flew rather slowly, the gun was still perceived as real threat.
While work was underway on the Big Babylon project, Bull was simultaneously working on his long-time dream. During the course of his work, his apartment was broken into several times, but nothing was stolen. A few months later, on March 20, 1990, an unknown person rang his doorbell and shot him five times in the head at point-blank range.
Official story is that it was an Israeli Mossad agent who subsequently spread disinformation that Bull had been shot by Iraqi agents. Other theories place responsibility for the scientist's murder on the Iranians, the CIA, MI6, the Chilean or South African government. By creating and selling weapons to almost everyone, Bull made many enemies for himself.
Project Babylon continued for several months after the death of the lead scientist, but in April 1990, British customs seized some of the cannon parts leaving the country. Some segments were built in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland and shipped to Iraq as "pressurized petrochemical capsules".
Fearing for their safety, most of the staff returned to Canada and the project stalled. After the Gulf War in 1991, Hussein acknowledged the existence of Project Babylon. The remaining parts of the cannon were destroyed by UN inspectors without ever firing a single shot.
In 1995, American television produced a film called “Weapons Doomsday" about the life of Gerald Bull and his research, including the Babylon Project. You can easily watch this film on YouTube, and Bull's life story became Starting point for Frederick Forsyth's novel The Fist of Allah.
Project SHARP ("Super High Altitude Research Project")
While Bull was making his life-changing deals with Hussain in the 1980s, another team of researchers was putting their plans into action at the Livermore National Laboratory in California.
This project was led by a scientist named John Hunter. He entered the game in 1985, trying to find a way to launch ballistic missiles using electromagnetic gun. Then he realized that the gas gun would give the shells even more higher speed than a powder explosion could give.
This air gun is based on the same principles as a gas gun. Gas is released under high pressure and sends the projectile high into space.
She began working in 1992, a year after Bull's death. It was the largest device at that time. The cannon was 130 meters long. Theoretically, the gun was capable of imparting a speed of 14,000 kilometers per hour to a projectile weighing 5 kilograms.
During testing, they were only able to reach 10,800 km/h. Therefore, the prospect of building a longer cannon, which was called the “Jules Verne,” opened up. The Jules Verne was supposed to be 3.5 kilometers long and required billions of dollars. Funding did not materialize, Hunter left the project, and the gun was acquired by DAPRA.
Quicklaunch
Hunter moved from project to project: he participated in the construction of water stations on the border between Mexico and America, designed the Zing Blaster Cyclone Ring, was busy in the field of children's toys, but like Bull, he became fixated on launching projectiles into space. In 2009 he founded the company Quicklaunch.
According to his idea, Quicklaunch was a cannon that they intended to install below sea level. The gun muzzle was planned to be 1.1 kilometers. The fuse used hydrogen as the working gas and methane as the explosive source.
According to the company, it will take only 10 minutes to heat the gas and launch the projectile. The design was supposed to give the projectile an initial speed of 6 km/s. However, the speed quickly decreases as the projectile enters the atmosphere.
Later, an innovative solution was made: instead of a simple capsule, a rocket is placed in the cannon, given its initial speed, and then it connects its engines until it reaches orbit. It is noteworthy that the cost of delivering cargo into low-Earth orbit per kilogram is $1,100 for Quicklaunch, while SpaceX’s Falcon 9 charges $4,100 for its services, $10,500 for Europe’s ARIANE 5 and $13,200 for NASA AtlasV.
Cheap cost combined with high productivity (up to 5 times a day), makes this method sending goods is ideal. But it’s too early to talk about sending a person into space this way, because the level of overload is too high. A person would shrink in half at the start. As Hunter said in an interview with PopularScience magazine in 2010: “...and it would be really fast!”
Unfortunately, this project stalled. In 2012, the company disappeared, even the site's domain changed hands, and the Facebook page does not respond to any attempts to contact the author. Meanwhile, it appears that Hunter has developed new toy- flights to the moon.
Now, the company has an “active” status on a business forum in California, so I dare to assume that they are now looking for investors.
Space guns today
Quicklaunch is just one company dedicated to launching cargo into space. There is an alternative option - the Startram project, which is armed with magnetic levitation technology.
To date, no gun has achieved the same success as the gun in the HARP project, which launched a projectile to an altitude of 180 kilometers.
Rockets remain the most reliable and effective way delivery of people and cargo into space. The remaining options are ideal only in the matter of replenishing stocks of raw materials, etc.
So will we ever be able to shoot people into space?
Copyright site © - Marcel Garipov based on an article from medium.com
Is this what you were looking for? Perhaps this is something you couldn’t find for so long?
On June 25, 1974, the Salyut-3 space station flew into space with a crew of two cosmonauts. At first glance, it looked like just another ordinary space flight. Salyuts were the Soviet analogue of the American civilian spacecraft Skylab, whose tasks included conducting experiments - such as what happens to the human body during a long flight. Moreover, in the era cold war he was intended to score propaganda points.
But the name “Salyut-3” was just a cover. In fact, Salyut 3 was a military space station"Almaz-2".
The mission of the Almaz stations was to observe the Earth's surface, similar to the US Air Force's manned orbital laboratory, which operated in orbit in the 1960s. The idea was that the advantageous position at an altitude of 270 kilometers would give good review and turned the station into an ideal observation point. America abandoned its manned orbital laboratory, but the Soviets launched three Almaz spacecraft between 1973 and 1976.
But Salyut-3/Almaz-2 had one major difference. It was not just a military space station. It was armed. Almaz-2 was equipped with a small cannon for the purpose of conducting an experiment to see if the Soviets could spaceships defend against American anti-satellite weapons.
Few details are known, but over time some information began to emerge. As James Oberg, a leading Western expert on the Soviet space program, writes, “according to published data, which was confirmed by the ship’s commander Pavel Popovich, a modified Soviet aircraft cannon to intercept aircraft. It was a Nudelman-Richter cannon, similar to those models that were equipped with the MiG-19, MiG-21 and Su-7.”
Some sources believe it was a 23mm gun, while others believe it was 30mm in caliber. “The gun barrel was directed parallel to the longitudinal axis of the station, and the weapon was aimed at the target by changing the orientation of the spacecraft using a sighting screen at the control station,” writes Oberg. Wikipedia reports that the gun's ammunition load was 32 rounds.
Apparently, the test firing was carried out by remote control from the Earth at a time when there were no astronauts on board the station. This means that Almaz fired its weapons, although not in combat conditions. “On January 24, 1975, tests took place special system on board Salyut-3, which gave positive results at a range of three thousand to 500 meters,” states the article Encyclopedia Astronautica. - There is no doubt that these were tests of the onboard 23-mm Nudelman aircraft cannon (other sources claim that it was a 30-mm Nudelman NR-30 cannon). The cosmonauts confirmed that during the tests the satellite target was destroyed.”
The gun on the Almaz station was definitely not an offensive weapon like the planet-exploding beam of the Death Star or hydrogen bombs, which were greatly feared by the Americans, who panicked in the 1950s due to the flights of Soviet satellites. They thought that these bombs were about to fall on their heads. But experts have different opinions about how effective this gun would be in space combat.
Oberg writes: “At a distance of less than a kilometer, it could be extremely effective if it was not fired across the orbital movement of the station, since in this case, according to the rules of orbital mechanics, the bullets had to return back to the station!”
Tony Williams, who is creating the history of cannons and machine guns, told The National Interest: “The vibration was definitely a problem. She was discovered when the cannons installed on board the station began to fire on the ground. This means that test firing in space was only carried out during unmanned flights. The recoil had to be compensated by the propulsion system and steering. The airless space shouldn't have been a problem, but I have a suspicion that the extreme temperatures did."
Space warfare expert Paul Szymanski said it would be possible to fire a cannon in space, but it would pose some challenges, especially in terms of fire control. “The trajectory of the fired projectile will be curved due to gravity (just like on the ground), and therefore this must be taken into account in the aiming mechanism. It is necessary to take into account enormous speeds, on which Almaz and the target are flying,” this specialist told The National Interest. In addition, when destroying a high-speed space target at short range, Almaz could suffer from fast-flying debris.
The Soviet space cannon was a defensive weapon - but who was it supposed to defend against? From the fictional space marines in that famous and strange scene from the James Bond movie Moonraker? Anti-satellite weapons exist - according to available information, China is developing them; and in 2006, the Americans used an anti-missile missile to destroy one of their faulty satellites. However, this technique has not yet been fully tested.
In any case, it will be a pity for the poor astronaut who tries to shoot down a rocket flying at a speed of eight kilometers per second.
to Favorites to Favorites from Favorites 7
This gun was created on the basis of the NS-23 (armed with the Il-10, La-9, La-11, MiG-9, MiG-15, Yak-15). Fundamental differences There were double-sided tape feed and a higher rate of fire. For this purpose, rollback and rollback accelerators were introduced. The automatic operation of the gun is based on the principle of using recoil energy with a short barrel stroke. The gun had a double-sided continuous belt feed. The ammunition was NS-23 cannon cartridges. Reloading is pneumatic. The channel is locked by piston. Initially, the HP-23's survivability was set at 3,000 rounds for mass production. Arms Minister Ustinov demanded that OKB-16 and the plant increase survivability to 6,000 rounds within a year, which was largely achieved. To reduce recoil, a hydraulic buffer was introduced. Development of the HP-23 began in December 1946, and in 1951 the finishing work was completed. The NR-23 was intended, in particular, to replace the 20-mm B-20 air cannon with heavy bomber Tu-14. The La-15 with new guns was put into service in 1948. The Tu-4, MiG-15-bis and a number of other aircraft were armed with it. The guns were mass-produced from 1948 to 1956 at factories No. 2 and No. 525. In 1957, only the assembly of guns was carried out from a stock of parts.
The Tu-4, MiG-15-bis, Tu-14 and a number of others were armed with it.
Barrel length 1450 mm. Gun dimensions: length 2018 mm, width 165 mm, height 136 mm. The weight of the gun is 39 kg. Rate of fire 800-950 rounds/min. The initial projectile speed is 680 m/s.
OPS program (manned orbital station) "Almaz"
Viewer of the POU-11 panoramic viewing device
OKS "Salyut-3" (OPS-2 or No. 102) weighing 18.5 tons was launched into orbit by a Proton launch vehicle on June 25, 1974. The orbital perigee was 213 km, apogee - 253 km, inclination 51.6° . The station ended its operation on January 25, 1975, having stayed in orbit for 213 days (90 days) and provided a manned flight for 13 days.
The 1st crew (commander, Colonel Pavel Popovich and flight engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Artyukhin) delivered the Soyuz-14 spacecraft to the station on July 4, 1974. In 15 days they completed the entire program.
The 2nd crew (Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Sarafanov and Lieutenant Colonel engineer Lev Demin) launched on the Soyuz-15 spacecraft and was supposed to dock on August 27, 1974, but due to a malfunction in the Igla rendezvous and docking system, the docking was canceled, and the crew landed. On September 23, the return capsule delivered photographic films and other materials to Earth, and the OPS, at the command of the Mission Control Center, was lowered from orbit on January 24, 1975.
Few people know that under the name of the peaceful civilian “Salyut” was hidden the military orbital station “Almaz”, designed to collect secret information primarily about military power U.S.A. The latter did not contradict international space law, because along it the borders of the state extend to an altitude of no more than 100 km, and the station flew much higher. The developers of the OPS (manned orbital station) knew that the United States was working on military inspection and interceptor satellites. Measures were taken to protect Almaz from devices of this kind: the OPS was equipped with a modification of the Nudelman-Richter NR-23 aircraft cannon (the tail gun of the Tu-22 jet bomber). The firing range against orbital targets was supposed to be more than 3000 m. The gun fired 950 rounds per minute. A projectile weighing 200 g flew at a speed of 690 m/s. According to the station's developers, in ground tests at a range of more than a kilometer, a cannon salvo cut a metal gasoline barrel in half. The recoil of the gun when firing in space was compensated by turning on the main engines or hard stabilization liquid rocket engines (the recoil of the gun was equivalent to a thrust of 218.5 kgf and the station had to be stabilized, which was easily handled by two main engines with a thrust of 400 kgf each or hard stabilization engines with a thrust of 40 kgf).
The gun was installed rigidly “under the belly” of the OPS. It could be aimed at the desired point through the sight, turning the entire station manually or by remote control to track the target. Firing from the cannon was controlled by a program control machine (PCA), which calculated the salvo required to destroy the target when the projectile's flight time to it was from 1 to 5 seconds.
“Almaz” could not attack anyone - what is the point of using a manned observation post weighing nearly 20 tons, with a giant camera and other equally valuable fillings as a space fighter? But it’s quite possible to defend ourselves, and not a single aggressor satellite could resist...
On June 25, 1974, Salyut-3, also known as Almaz-2, was launched into orbit. On July 3, the Soyuz-14 spacecraft launched towards it with commander Pavel Popovich and flight engineer Yuri Artyukhin. In one of the interviews, Pavel Romanovich will only slightly reveal the secret of that flight: “We went into space on a very interesting car and we dealt with special issues, that is, space reconnaissance.” "Fathers" of military space programs Soviet Union. Assistant to the Air Force Commander-in-Chief for Space, General Nikolai Kamanin. "Fathers" of the military space programs of the Soviet Union. General designer of OKB-52 Vladimir Chelomey. And further: “We had everything: powerful optics, photographic equipment, infrared devices and much more. We perfectly saw the classified objects we needed. They even intercepted the American Skylab station, which was the first and only American space station with three astronauts on board. We identified them seventy kilometers from us, photographed them, and remained unnoticed.”
January 24, 1975 when the station "Almaz-2" ("Salyut-3") completely completed the flight along the main and additional programs, the cannon fired the first (and last!) salvo. The cannon was tested by cosmonauts Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin. The tests were successful, although they fired, as they say, “in white light like a penny,” and the shells fired against the orbital velocity vector entered the atmosphere and burned up even before the station.
The Americans never created either space inspectors or orbital interceptors. The shuttle, which the Soviet military positioned as “potentially possible weapon decapitation strike and anti-satellite defense” had not yet flown by that time. And on the next Almaz (Salyut-5, June 22, 1976 - August 8, 1977) the gun was no longer there.
Subsequently, the more advanced military station Almaz-3 (Salyut-5) was going to be equipped with space-to-space missiles with a firing range of more than 100 km. This is much more than the space cannon, which fired only 3 km. “As envisaged earlier, for defense, instead of a cannon (Shield-1 system), two space-to-space projectiles (Shield-2 system) designed by the same design bureau, headed by A.E., were installed on the station. Nudelman,” wrote Vladimir Polyachenko, who was the chief leading designer on the “Almaz” topic in the 70s, in Cosmonautics News. But the shells were not created, and soon the entire manned military program. The very design of the Almaz is still used for peaceful purposes - it was converted first into the Mir station, and then into the living compartment of the International Space Station.
Source
buran.ru wrote: ...However, Soviet experts, who closely followed the “starting” of the shuttle project and did not know about the new American spy satellite, could explain the selected dimensions of the useful compartment and the shuttle’s carrying capacity only by the desire of the “American military” to be able to inspect and, if necessary, film (more precisely, to capture) from orbit Soviet manned stations of the DOS series (long-term orbital stations) developed by TsKBEM and military OPS (manned orbital stations) Almaz developed by OKB-52 V. Chelomey. By the way, “just in case” an automatic cannon of the Nudelman-Richter design was installed on the OPS.
pensioner-72 wrote: A space cannon under the “belly of Almaz”, or an aviation cannon designed by Nudelman-Richter NR-23 (Russia).
Dear Colleagues: for the combustion of gunpowder you need... oxygen
Ogonyok.com magazine wrote ogoniok.com/4916/30 - There is something to shoot in space!
Loading...
