Combat orbital station "Scythian" (USSR). Combat Orbital Complex "Skif-DM Spaceship Pole"
SDI was admired by Reagan's fans, although his critics scoffed at the project and ensured it got the "Star Wars" moniker. The Soviet Union found itself in this case in an unusual situation, as it was forced to join the Reagan fans and take SDI quite seriously. Soviet leaders feared that the Americans wanted to disarm their country or secretly put a battle station into orbit. The Reagan plan literally forced them to act.
The Soviet reaction to this was a clandestine project that, if successful, could become very "loud". Soviet authorities accelerated the creation of space weapons capable, they hoped, of neutralizing American anti-missile satellites. The essence of their plan was to use the Soviet space program to place weapons in orbit - nuclear missiles and lasers.
The culmination of the project was the launch on May 15, 1987 of the Polus-Skif spacecraft. Historical works (as well as the series "The Americans") say that the device never entered orbit. But if its launch had succeeded, space would have been a different place, and the Cold War might have played out very differently.
Space as an arena for peaceful competition
Space as a whole remained free of weapons for a long time, although not because the idea of space weapons did not occur to anyone. As early as 1949, James Lipp, head of RAND's rocket division, was considering using satellites as extra-atmospheric bombing platforms. After considering the technology available at the time, Lipp decided that dropping bombs from orbit would be ineffective and refused to list satellites as a weapon. While they may be useful to the military, the expert concluded, they cannot serve as weapons on their own.
When Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957 and the space age began in earnest, the Eisenhower administration took the position proposed in the longstanding Lipp Report. Realizing the political advantages of fighting for peaceful space, Eisenhower created the NASA civilian space agency to clearly separate space exploration from any military initiatives. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations took the same approach. And although the space race was part of the Cold War, weapons never came into space, despite the fact that the advent of CIA spy satellites turned orbit into a battlefield.
The peaceful nature of space programs was enshrined in 1967 by the Outer Space Treaty. This document, signed by both the United States and the Soviet Union, prohibited the placement of nuclear weapons in Earth orbit and on the Moon. It also forbade in principle the use of space and any celestial bodies for military purposes. In 1972, both superpowers signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which obligated each side to have no more than two missile defense systems - one to protect the capital and one to protect the base of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Weapons in orbit
However, in both treaties - both 1967 and 1972 - there was one important omission: they both did not prohibit the signatory countries from developing space-based defense systems. Naturally, both countries took advantage of this loophole.
In America, the problems of missile defense were studied for a long time, and as a result, Reagan decided to come to grips with the SDI project. The Soviet leaders also organized two independent studies of possible defense options against hypothetical American missiles. The result of these studies was "Skif" and "Cascade" - projects of two orbital defense systems that could be disguised as modules for the Mir station.
NPO Energia, which created the Soyuz ships, began working on the Skif and Cascade in 1976. At first it was assumed that the stations would shoot down American intercontinental ballistic missiles in flight, but then it was decided that they would be better used against American anti-missile satellites. The Kaskad apparatus was supposed to hit satellites in high orbit with rockets, and the Skif was supposed to hit satellites in low orbit with lasers. At the same time, no American anti-missile satellites yet existed, but such details did not matter to the Soviet Union.
The "Skif" project, named after the ancient warlike people from Central Asia, was also called "Pole-Skif".
By 1983, the Polus-Skif and Cascade projects had been underway for many years. Preliminary tests were carried out at the Salyut design bureau. However, SDI has served as a powerful catalyst for both projects. If Reagan was going, as the Soviet Union feared, to launch an American battle station into space, Moscow wanted to be ready for it. After Reagan's speech, the rubles flowed in a stream, work accelerated, and ideas began to be embodied in metal.
Skif-DM
However, money alone cannot put a satellite into orbit. To speed up the launch, Soviet leaders came up with an interim plan: to use for the prototype a small 1-megawatt carbon dioxide laser, which had already been tested against missiles - for this it was installed on the Il-76 transport aircraft. In 1984, the project was approved and named "Skif-D". The letter "D" meant "demonstration".
The problems didn't end there. For the Soviet Proton launch vehicle, even the relatively small Skif-D was too large. However, its creators were lucky - a much more powerful rocket was on the way - Energia, named after the developer and designed to launch the Buran shuttle into orbit. This powerful rocket could carry 95 tons of cargo into space and was able to cope with the Skif-D without any difficulties.
Skif-D was built in haste from existing components, including parts from the Buran shuttle and from the Almaz military orbital station, the launch of which was canceled. It turned out something monstrous, 40 meters long, a little more than 4 meters in diameter, and weighing almost 100 thousand kilograms. Compared to this craft, NASA's Skylab space station looked small. Luckily for its creators, it was thin and long enough to be docked to the Energia by attaching it along its central fuel tank.
Skif-D had two main parts: a "functional block" and a "target module". The functional unit housed the small rocket engines needed to propel the vehicle into its final orbit, as well as a power supply system made from solar panels borrowed from Almaz. The target module carried carbon dioxide tanks and two turbogenerators. These systems provided the operation of the laser - turbogenerators pumped carbon dioxide, exciting atoms and leading to the emission of light.
The problem was that the turbogenerators had large moving parts and the gas was so hot that it had to be bled off. This affected the movement of the spacecraft, making the laser extremely inaccurate. To counteract these fluctuations, Polyus engineers designed a system for ejecting gas through deflectors and added a turret to aim the laser more accurately.
In the end, it turned out that the Skif is so complex that each component must be tested separately in space before sending the station into orbit. However, when the launch opportunity arose in 1985, it was decided to turn a blind eye to this circumstance. The fact is that the Buran project was far behind schedule, and they did not have time to complete it by the planned first flight of the Energia rocket, scheduled for 1986. At first, the developers of Energia thought to test their rocket, replacing the Buran with a blank, but then the creators of Skif intervened. In the end, the authorities decided that Energia would carry a new apparatus into space.
The prospect of a close launch forced the engineers to propose another intermediate solution - to test only the control system of the functional unit, the gas ejection system and the laser aiming system and not yet equip the device with a working laser. What happened in the end was dubbed "Scythian-DM" (the letter "M" meant "layout"). The launch was scheduled for autumn 1986.
Before the deadline
In January 1986, the Politburo included the Polus-Skif project among the top priorities of the Soviet space program. At some point, more than 70 enterprises of the Soviet aerospace industry were working on it. No excuses from the laggards were taken into account, although most of the specialists involved in the project were simultaneously engaged in the Buran, trying not to let it get even further behind schedule.
Before the launch, Soviet engineers began to develop versions of the cover. The developers of Polyus understood that if a huge apparatus appeared in orbit, throwing out a large amount of gas, American intelligence would definitely pay attention to it. They also understood that the emissions of gases clearly indicate a laser.
Therefore, in order to hide the true purpose of the Skif-DM, the engineers changed the gas that the device was supposed to emit during tests to a mixture of xenon and krypton. These gases interact with the ionospheric plasma surrounding the Earth, and this would allow the USSR to refer to some kind of peaceful geophysical experiment in response to all questions. For another test task - testing the laser guidance system - it was necessary to release small inflatable target balls so that they could be tracked by radar and aimed at them with a laser. The cover in this case could be that such balls could also be used as targets in tests of an automatic rendezvous and docking system.
In such programs, launch delays are almost inevitable, and Skif-DM is no exception. However, the small technical programs paled in comparison to the political ones. By that time, Mikhail Gorbachev, who had become General Secretary of the Communist Party, advocated comprehensive reforms of the economy and the bureaucratic system. One of their targets was the level of military spending, which seemed to him "disastrous", including for defense space programs. Gorbachev recognized the American SDI as dangerous, but did not consider it a serious threat. However, when he and Reagan met in October 1986 at the US-Soviet summit in Reykjavik, arms reduction talks broke down after the US president's refusal to stop the American project.
Gorbachev decided to use the failure of the talks as part of a propaganda plan against SDI. Against this background, the demonstration of targets and gas emissions began to look uncomfortable, and from above it was ordered to change the test program. All experiments related to the functions of the "combat platform" were canceled. The device was supposed to be launched into orbit, but without testing the gas exhaust system and without targets. In January 1987, a few weeks before launch, an official order came from Gorbachev's allies in the Politburo making the tests passive.
At the beginning of 1987, in the assembly shop at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Skif-DM satellite was docked with the Energia rocket. Technicians painted it black to maximize heat from the Sun and wrote two names on it: "Pole", under which it was to be presented to the world after launch, and "Mir-2", the name of the civil space station project, which the management "Energy" hoped to implement. After that, the rocket was rolled out to the launch pad and brought to a vertical position.
So she stood for more than three months - the launch was postponed until Gorbachev's planned visit to the cosmodrome. The Secretary General arrived on May 12, walked around the Energia facilities and carefully examined Energia and Polyus. According to some of his comments, one could conclude that the program is losing his support. He questioned the need for the Buran (and along with the Energia rocket) and spoke out against the militarization of space. However, he officially gave the green light to the launch of Skif-DM. In its coverage of Gorbachev's visit to Baikonur, the Soviet news agency TASS mentioned a new rocket on the launch pad. This is how the world heard about Energia for the first time.
"Pole-Skif" takes off
On May 15, 1987 at 9:30 pm Moscow time, Energia's engines woke up for the first time. A huge rocket took off from the launch pad. She headed for the sky and went into orbit at a 65-degree angle so that if the worst happened and the rocket exploded, burning debris from the sky would not rain down on foreign territory and cause international incidents. However, fears about a possible unsuccessful launch did not materialize. Energy worked flawlessly. She picked up speed and went in an arc towards the Pacific Ocean. "Skif-DM" separated from the rocket, as planned. The spent rocket and the protective casing of the apparatus fell off.
In solo flight, the Polus-Skif had to perform one key maneuver—roll over before igniting the engines. Since it was created in a hurry, its functional unit was designed for the Proton rocket and could not withstand the powerful vibration of the Energia engines. Therefore, it was necessary to place it with a functional block forward - away from the rocket engines. In order for the device to enter orbit, it had to roll over and direct the engines towards the Earth.
However, there was a failure. The developers were in too much of a hurry, and a bug crept into the computer code. The device rolled over twice and as a result its nose turned out to be directed to the Earth. When the engines turned on, the Skif-DM headed straight for the planet. Re-entering the atmosphere, it disintegrated and burned up.
Results
In the West, the debut of the Energia rocket was considered partially successful. And it was true. Although the satellite did not go into orbit, the rocket worked perfectly. For Energia, this was a great success, but it did not save the Polus-Skif and Cascade projects. The failure of Skif-DM, coupled with the incredible cost of a single test, gave the opponents of the program the necessary arguments to finish it off. Further flights of the Skif were canceled, and the equipment was disposed of. The laser was never tested, and it is now impossible to say whether it would have worked against American satellites. None of the hundreds of engineers who worked on the Polyus, and specifically on the Skif-DM, received an award for this.
Rumor has it that components left over from the Skif project were used for the International Space Station. Its first module was the Russian Zarya, also known as the Functional Cargo Block. This module, like the Skif functional block, is needed to provide power supply and orbital correction. It is likely that the Zarya began life as a spare part for the Pole or was created according to old drawings. Both would explain the fact that the module was launched on time and without budget overruns.
Details about the Pole” are still unknown. The data is most likely buried deep in the inaccessible Russian archives, as are documents about the reaction of Soviet leaders to Reagan's SDI speech. Just as deeply buried are government documents on the American reaction to the launch of the Polus-Skif. This project is rarely talked about now, but it is clear that the world narrowly escaped a real test of the effectiveness of space weapons. It is hard to imagine what would have happened if Polyus-Skif had managed to enter orbit, how the Americans would have reacted to this, and what kind of space arms race could have followed.
The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.
Not so long ago, we briefly talked about American research on the deployment of laser installations in near-Earth space, which could (purely theoretically) destroy entire packs of warheads and found intercontinental missiles.
We know well what came of this - apart from a couple of satellites and ground tests, the Americans could not “squeeze out” anything else. But the Soviet designers managed to do much more.
Unlike the United States, where the entire SDI program was economically motivated, in the Soviet Union, the problem of deploying combat lasers in space was taken very seriously. Undoubtedly, undercover information from the States was received and the Americans had to be caught up and overtaken.
In general, this idea arose in the late 1970s. and led to the creation of the Skif project. It was assumed that this would be a combat laser station with a powerful power plant, capable of operating both in automatic mode and controlled from the MCC.
The work progressed quickly, but for the purpose of international detente, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Yuri Andropov, on August 18, 1983, made a statement that the USSR unilaterally stopped testing the anti-space defense complex. As it turned out - ahead of time. After R. Reagan came to power and the SDI program appeared, the situation changed radically. The work accelerated and already in 1985 the working drawings were almost ready.
Structurally, the device was the following (taken from Wikipedia):
“The Skif-DM station (product 17F19DM) had a length of 37 meters, a maximum diameter of 4.1 meters and a mass of about 80 tons. It consisted of two main compartments: a smaller one - a functional service unit and a larger one - a target module. The functional service block was a long-established supply spacecraft for the Salyut orbital station. It housed the traffic and onboard complex control systems, telemetry control, command radio communications, thermal management, power supply, separation and release of fairings, antenna devices, and a control system for scientific experiments. All devices and systems that could not withstand the vacuum were located in a sealed instrument-cargo compartment.
The propulsion unit compartment housed 4 sustainer engines, 20 orientation and stabilization engines and 16 precision stabilization engines, as well as tanks, pipelines and valves of the pneumohydraulic system serving the engines. Solar panels were placed on the side surfaces of the propulsion system, which open after entering orbit.”
For the delivery of "Skif" it was planned to use the latest carrier "Energy" at that time. We immediately decided not to risk it, and in September 1986 it was decided to launch the Energia-Skif-DM system. That is, in the beginning, a kind of test bench was supposed to go into space. The flight program of the orbital station "Skif-DM" included ten experiments: four applied and six geophysical ones.
However, the production of the device was delayed and the launch had to be postponed to May 15, 1987. This time we managed to meet the deadline - the launch took place on the appointed day, but due to an unfortunate mistake, Skif-DM was unable to complete the test program. After separation from the carrier at an altitude of 110 km, the power plant did not work correctly. As a result, Skif-DM entered a ballistic trajectory and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
Despite this failure, the official press release indicated that the tests of the rocket-space system and the launch of the Polyus satellite model into space were successful (which was true): “However, due to the abnormal operation of its onboard systems, the mock-up did not enter the specified orbit and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean…”
The next step was to be the launch of a full-fledged battle station into orbit, but here perestroika was already in full swing and work on this project began to curtail. At first gradually, and in 1991 it was completely closed. So, without much fuss and to the delight of the Americans, the invaluable experience of Soviet specialists was “buried”.
77 t (without modules)
length: 37 m, diameter: 4.1 m
"Pole" (Skif-DM, product 17F19DM) - spacecraft, dynamic layout (DM) of a combat laser orbital platform "Scythian", the payload used during the first launch of the Energia launch vehicle in 1987.
History of creation
Orbital platform "Skif"
"Scythian"- a project for a combat laser orbital platform weighing over 80 tons, the development of which began in the late 1970s at NPO Energia (in 1981, due to the heavy workload of the association, the Skif theme was transferred to the Salyut Design Bureau). On August 18, 1983, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Yuri Andropov, made a statement that the USSR unilaterally stopped testing the anti-space defense complex, but in connection with the SDI program in the USA, work on the Skif continued.
In particular, a gas-dynamic CO 2 laser GDL RD0600 with a power of 100 kW and dimensions of 2140x1820x680 mm was developed for the laser orbital platform at JSC Design Bureau of Khimavtomatika, which passed a full cycle of bench testing by 2011.
Dynamic layout Skif-DM
In the project's boundaries "Scythian" for 1986-1987, an experimental launch into orbit of a weight-and-weight model of the station (a spacecraft Skif-DM) using a booster "Energy".
Skif-DM had a length of 37 meters, a maximum diameter of 4.1 meters and a mass of about 80 tons. It consisted of two main compartments: a smaller one - a functional service unit and a larger one - a target module. The functional service block was a long-established supply spacecraft for the Salyut orbital station. It housed the traffic and onboard complex control systems, telemetry control, command radio communications, thermal management, power supply, separation and release of fairings, antenna devices, and a scientific experiment control system. All devices and systems that could not withstand the vacuum were located in a sealed instrument-cargo compartment.
The propulsion unit compartment housed 4 sustainer engines, 20 orientation and stabilization engines and 16 precision stabilization engines, as well as tanks, pipelines and valves of the pneumohydraulic system serving the engines. Solar panels were placed on the side surfaces of the propulsion system, which open after entering orbit.
flight program Skif-DM included ten experiments: four applied and six geophysical.
Launch of the Energia-Skif-DM complex on May 15, 1987
Initially, the launch of the Energia-Skif-DM system was planned for September 1986. However, due to the delay in the manufacture of the apparatus, the preparation of the launcher and other systems of the cosmodrome, the launch was postponed for almost half a year - on May 15, 1987. Only at the end of January 1987, the apparatus was transported from the assembly and test building at the 92nd site of the cosmodrome, where it was trained, to the building of the assembly and refueling complex. There, on February 3, 1987, the Skif-DM was docked with the Energia launch vehicle. The next day, the complex was taken to the universal complex stand-start at the 250th site. In fact, the Energia-Skif-DM complex was ready for launch only at the end of April.
The launch of the complex took place on May 15, 1987 with a delay of five hours. Two stages of "Energy" worked successfully. 460 seconds after the launch, the Skif-DM separated from the launch vehicle at an altitude of 110 kilometers. The process of turning the spacecraft after separation from the launch vehicle, due to an electrical circuit switching error, lasted longer than the calculated one. As a result, the Skif-DM did not enter the intended orbit and fell into the Pacific Ocean along a ballistic trajectory. Despite this, according to the assessment indicated in the report, more than 80% of the planned experiments were completed.
public message
On May 15, 1987, TASS published a message stating, in part:
| The Soviet Union has begun flight design tests of a new powerful universal launch vehicle Energia, designed to launch both reusable orbital spacecraft and large-sized spacecraft for scientific and national economic purposes into near-Earth orbits. A two-stage universal launch vehicle ... is capable of launching more than 100 tons of payload into orbit ... On May 15, 1987, at 21:30 Moscow time, the first launch of this rocket was carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome ... The second stage of the launch vehicle ... brought the overall weight model to the calculated point satellite. Dimensional-weight layout after separation from the second stage was supposed to be launched into a circular near-Earth orbit with the help of its own engine. However, due to the abnormal operation of its on-board systems, the model did not enter the specified orbit and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean ... |
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Literature
- Glushko V.P. Storming space with rocket systems // . - 3rd ed., revised. and additional - M .: Mashinostroenie, 1987. - S. 304.
Notes
See also
Links
- www.buran.ru/htm/cargo.htm
- www.astronautix.com/craft/polyus.htm
- www.buran.ru/htm/scr.htm - screensaver with a space station and other spacecraft.
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An excerpt characterizing the Pole (spacecraft)
Two hours later the carts were in the courtyard of Bogucharov's house. The peasants were busy carrying out the master's belongings and putting them on the carts, and Dron, at the request of Princess Marya, released from the locker where he was locked up, standing in the yard, disposed of the peasants.“Don’t put it down so badly,” said one of the peasants, a tall man with a round smiling face, taking the box from the maid’s hands. She's worth the money too. Why are you throwing it like that or half a rope - and it will rub. I don't like that. And to be honest, according to the law. That's how it is under the matting, but cover it with a curtain, that's important. Love!
“Look for books, books,” said another peasant, who was carrying out the library cabinets of Prince Andrei. - You do not cling! And it’s heavy, guys, the books are healthy!
- Yes, they wrote, they didn’t walk! - a tall chubby man said with a significant wink, pointing to the thick lexicons lying on top.
Rostov, not wanting to impose his acquaintance on the princess, did not go to her, but remained in the village, waiting for her to leave. Having waited for Princess Mary's carriages to leave the house, Rostov mounted on horseback and accompanied her on horseback to the path occupied by our troops, twelve miles from Bogucharov. In Jankovo, at the inn, he took leave of her respectfully, for the first time allowing himself to kiss her hand.
“You’re not ashamed,” blushing, he answered Princess Marya to the expression of gratitude for her salvation (as she called his act), “every guard would have done the same. If we only had to fight with the peasants, we would not let the enemy go so far, ”he said, ashamed of something and trying to change the conversation. “I am only happy to have had the opportunity to meet you. Farewell, princess, I wish you happiness and consolation, and wish to meet you under happier conditions. If you don't want to make me blush, please don't thank me.
But the princess, if she did not thank him more with words, thanked him with the whole expression of her face, beaming with gratitude and tenderness. She couldn't believe him, that she had nothing to thank him for. On the contrary, for her it was undoubtedly that if he were not there, then she probably would have to die from both the rebels and the French; that he, in order to save her, exposed himself to the most obvious and terrible dangers; and even more undoubted was the fact that he was a man with a high and noble soul, who knew how to understand her position and grief. His kind and honest eyes, with tears coming out of them, while she herself, crying, spoke to him about her loss, did not go out of her imagination.
When she said goodbye to him and was left alone, Princess Mary suddenly felt tears in her eyes, and then, not for the first time, she asked herself a strange question, does she love him?
On the way further to Moscow, despite the fact that the situation of the princess was not joyful, Dunyasha, who was traveling with her in the carriage, noticed more than once that the princess, leaning out of the carriage window, smiled joyfully and sadly at something.
“Well, what if I did love him? thought Princess Mary.
No matter how ashamed she was to admit to herself that she was the first to love a man who, perhaps, would never love her, she consoled herself with the thought that no one would ever know this and that it would not be her fault if she didn’t talking about loving the one she loved for the first and last time.
Sometimes she remembered his views, his participation, his words, and it seemed to her that happiness was not impossible. And then Dunyasha noticed that she, smiling, was looking out the window of the carriage.
“And he should have come to Bogucharovo, and at that very moment! thought Princess Mary. - And it was necessary for his sister to refuse Prince Andrei! - And in all this, Princess Mary saw the will of providence.
The impression made on Rostov by Princess Marya was very pleasant. When he thought about her, he felt merry, and when his comrades, having learned about the adventure that had happened with him in Bogucharov, joked to him that he, having gone for hay, had picked up one of the richest brides in Russia, Rostov became angry. He was angry precisely because the idea of marrying a pleasant for him, meek Princess Marya with a huge fortune more than once came to his mind against his will. For himself, Nikolai could not wish for a better wife than Princess Mary: marrying her would make the Countess, his mother, happy, and improve his father’s affairs; and even—Nikolai felt it—would have made Princess Marya happy. But Sonya? And this word? And this made Rostov angry when they joked about Princess Bolkonskaya.
Having taken command of the armies, Kutuzov remembered Prince Andrei and sent him an order to arrive at the main apartment.
Prince Andrey arrived in Tsarevo Zaimishche on the same day and at the same time of the day when Kutuzov made the first review of the troops. Prince Andrey stopped in the village near the priest's house, at which the commander-in-chief's carriage was stationed, and sat on a bench at the gate, waiting for the Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutuzov. On the field outside the village, one could hear the sounds of regimental music, then the roar of a huge number of voices shouting “Hurrah! to the new commander-in-chief. Immediately at the gate, about ten paces from Prince Andrei, taking advantage of the absence of the prince and the fine weather, stood two batmen, a courier and a butler. Blackish, overgrown with mustaches and sideburns, a small hussar lieutenant colonel rode up to the gate and, looking at Prince Andrei, asked: is the brightest here and will he be soon?
Prince Andrei said that he did not belong to the headquarters of his Serene Highness and was also a visitor. The hussar lieutenant colonel turned to the well-dressed batman, and the batman of the commander-in-chief said to him with that special contempt with which the batmen of the commanders-in-chief speak to the officers:
- What, brightest? It must be now. You that?
The hussar lieutenant colonel grinned into his mustache at the orderly, got off the horse, gave it to the messenger and went up to Bolkonsky, bowing slightly to him. Bolkonsky stood aside on the bench. The hussar lieutenant-colonel sat down beside him.
Are you also waiting for the commander-in-chief? said the hussar lieutenant colonel. - Govog "yat, accessible to everyone, thank God. Otherwise, there is trouble with the sausages! Nedag" om Yeg "molov in the Germans pg" settled down. Tepeg "maybe and g" Russian talk "it will be possible. Otherwise, Cheg" does not know what they were doing. Everyone retreated, everyone retreated. Did you do the hike? - he asked.
- I had the pleasure, - answered Prince Andrei, - not only to participate in the retreat, but also to lose in this retreat everything that was dear, not to mention the estates and home ... father, who died of grief. I am from Smolensk.
- And? .. Are you Prince Bolkonsky? It’s a hell of a place to meet: Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as Vaska, said Denisov, shaking Prince Andrei’s hand and peering into Bolkonsky’s face with especially kind attention. Yes, I heard, ”he said sympathetically and, after a pause, continued : - Here is the Scythian war. This is all hog "osho, but not for those who puff with their sides. Are you Prince Andg "hey Bolkonsky?" He shook his head. "Very hell, prince, very hell to meet you," he added again with a sad smile, shaking his hand.
Prince Andrei knew Denisov from Natasha's stories about her first fiancé. This recollection both sweetly and painfully carried him now to those painful sensations that he had not thought about for a long time, but which nevertheless were in his soul. Recently, there have been so many other and such serious impressions as leaving Smolensk, his arrival in the Bald Mountains, recently known about the death of his father - so many sensations were experienced by him that these memories had not come to him for a long time and, when they did, had no effect on him. him with the same strength. And for Denisov, the series of memories that Bolkonsky’s name evoked was the distant, poetic past, when, after dinner and Natasha’s singing, without knowing how, he proposed to a fifteen-year-old girl. He smiled at the memories of that time and his love for Natasha, and immediately turned to what passionately and exclusively now occupied him. This was the campaign plan he had come up with while serving in the outposts during the retreat. He presented this plan to Barclay de Tolly and now intended to present it to Kutuzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of operations was too long and that instead of, or at the same time, acting from the front, blocking the way for the French, it was necessary to act on their messages. He began to explain his plan to Prince Andrei.
The development of the Skif combat laser station, designed to destroy low-orbit space objects with an onboard laser complex, began at NPO Energia, but due to the large workload of the association, since 1981, the Skif theme was transferred to the Salyut Design Bureau. On August 18, 1983, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Yuri Andropov, made a statement that the USSR would unilaterally stop testing the anti-space defense complex. However, with the announcement of the SDI program in the USA, work on the Skif continued.
For testing a laser combat station, a dynamic analogue of the Skif-D was designed. In the future, for the test launch of the Energia launch vehicle, a mock-up sample of the Skif-DM station (Polyus) was urgently created.
The Skif-DM station had a length of 37 meters, a maximum diameter of 4.1 meters and a mass of about 80 tons. It consisted of two main compartments: a smaller one - a functional service unit and a larger one - a target module. The functional unit was a well-developed supply spacecraft for the Salyut orbital station. It housed the traffic and onboard complex control systems, telemetry control, command radio communications, thermal management, power supply, separation and release of fairings, antenna devices, and a control system for scientific experiments. All devices and systems that could not withstand the vacuum were located in a sealed instrument-cargo compartment. In the compartment of the propulsion system there were four main engines, 20 orientation and stabilization engines and 16 precision stabilization engines, as well as tanks, pipelines and valves of the pneumohydraulic system serving the engines.
Solar panels were placed on the side surfaces of the propulsion system, which open after entering orbit.
A lot of work has been done in the bureau to create a new large head fairing that protects the functional unit from the oncoming air flow. For the first time it was made of non-metallic material - carbon fiber.
The target module was designed and manufactured from scratch.
At the same time, the designers focused on the maximum use of already mastered nodes and technologies. For example, the diameter and design of all compartments made it possible to use the existing technological equipment of the Khrunichev plant. The nodes connecting the launch vehicle with the spacecraft were taken ready-made - the same as for the "Buran", as well as the transitional docking block connecting the "Pole" with the Earth at the start. The system for separating the "Polyus" from the rocket also repeated Buranov's.
Since the functional module was essentially a previously mastered spacecraft, it was necessary for it to observe the same loads that it was calculated for when launched by the Proton-K launch vehicle. Therefore, of all the layout options, they were able to choose only one in which the block is located in the head part of the Polus.
And since it was unprofitable to transfer the propulsion system, which was in the functional unit, to the aft part, after separation from the launch vehicle, the Pole flies forward with sustainer engines.
Initially, the launch of the Energia-Skif-DM system was planned for September 1986. However, due to the delay in the manufacture of the apparatus, the preparation of the launcher and other systems of the cosmodrome, the launch was postponed for almost half a year - on May 15, 1987. Only at the end of January 1987, the apparatus was transported from the assembly and test building at the 92nd site of the cosmodrome, where it was trained, to the building of the assembly and refueling complex. There, on February 3, 1987, the Skif-DM was docked with the Energia launch vehicle. The next day, the complex was taken to the universal complex stand-start at the 250th site.
In reality, the Energia-Skif-DM complex was ready for launch only at the end of April.
The flight program of the orbital station "Skif-DM" included ten experiments: four applied and six geophysical ones.
The "VP1" experiment was devoted to the development of a scheme for launching a large-sized spacecraft using a containerless scheme.
In the "VP2" experiment, studies were carried out on the conditions for launching a large-sized apparatus, its structural elements and systems.
Experimental verification of the principles of constructing a large-sized and super-heavy spacecraft (unified module, control systems, thermal control, power supply, electromagnetic compatibility issues) was devoted to the "VPS" experiment.
In the VP11 experiment, it was planned to work out the flight scheme and technology.
The program of geophysical experiments "Mirage" was devoted to the study of the effect of combustion products on the upper layers of the atmosphere and ionosphere. The Mirage1 (A1) experiment was to be carried out up to an altitude of 120 kilometers at the launch stage; experiment "Mirage-2" ("A2") - at altitudes from 120 to 280 kilometers during pre-acceleration; experiment "Mirage-3" ("A3") - at altitudes from 280 to the Earth during braking.
Geophysical experiments "GF-1/1", "GF-1/2" and "GF-1/3" were planned to be carried out with the propulsion system of the "Skif-DM" vehicle operating.
The GF-1/1 experiment was devoted to the generation of artificial internal gravity waves in the upper atmosphere.
The purpose of the GF-1/2 experiment was to create an artificial "dynamo effect" in the earth's ionosphere.
Finally, the GF-1/3 experiment was planned to create large-scale ion formations in iono- and plasmaspheres (holes and ducts). To do this, the "Pole" was equipped with a large amount (420 kilograms) of a gas mixture of xenon with krypton (42 cylinders, each with a capacity of 36 liters) and a system for releasing it into the ionosphere.
The launch of the Energia-Skif-DM complex took place on May 15, 1987 with a delay of five hours. Two stages of "Energy" worked successfully. 460 seconds after the launch, the SkifDM separated from the launch vehicle at an altitude of 110 kilometers.
The test program for the Skif-DM apparatus was not fully implemented due to an unfortunate failure that led to the death of the station (I already wrote about this in Chapter 14). However, this flight also gave a lot of results. First of all, all the necessary material was obtained to clarify the loads on the Buran orbital vehicle in order to ensure its flight tests. All four applied experiments (VP-1, VP-2, VP-3 and VP-11), as well as part of the geophysical experiments (Mirage-1 and partially "GF-1/1" and "GF-1/3").
The conclusion on the results of the launch stated: “... Thus, the general tasks of launching the product, determined by the launch tasks approved by MOM and UNKS, taking into account the “Decision” of May 13, 1987 to limit the volume of targeted experiments, were completed by the number of tasks solved by more than 80%".