For the national cosmonautics, the Soyuz spacecraft are a landmark project. Work on the creation of a basic model of a multi-seat manned transport spacecraft began in the USSR back in 1962. Created in the 1960s, the ship was constantly modernized and is still used for space flights. From 1967 to 2019, 145 Soyuz launches have already been made. For our country, the Soyuz spacecraft are of great importance, having become a key component of first Soviet and then Russian manned astronautics.
Like practically all space developments of the Soviet period, the Soyuz spacecraft had a dual purpose. On the basis of this ship, variants of military vehicles were also developed. One of these ships was the Soyuz 7K-VI, developed in the USSR in 1963-1968 under the Zvezda program. Soyuz 7K-VI was a special multi-seat military research manned spacecraft. The ship differed from the civilian variants by the presence of weapons - a rapid-fire 23-mm aircraft cannon, adapted for use in outer space.
The emergence of "Unions"
Work on the creation in the USSR of a rocket and space complex for manned flights and flyby of the Moon began on April 16, 1962. The workers of OKB-1 under the leadership of the outstanding designer Sergei Korolev (today RSC Energia named after SP Korolev) worked on the creation of a new spacecraft for the ambitious Soviet lunar program. By March 1963, the shape of the descent vehicle was chosen, which in the future will become the Soyuz. Gradually, Soviet engineers, based on the project of the lunar spacecraft, created the 7K-OK apparatus, designed to accommodate three cosmonauts, an orbital ship designed to practice various maneuvers in Earth orbit and dock two spacecraft, with the transition of astronauts from one spacecraft to another. Instead of the fuel cells discussed earlier, the ship received a memorable solar array.
When creating a new spacecraft, Soviet engineers paid much attention to the issue of organizing favorable conditions for the work and life of cosmonauts at the stages of launching into space, the flight itself, and descent from Earth's orbit. Structurally manned spacecraft "Soyuz" included three main parts. Among them, an orbital or household compartment was distinguished, which served as a scientific laboratory, where it was possible to conduct scientific research and experiments, the same compartment was used to rest the astronauts. The second compartment was the cockpit - the descent vehicle in which the astronauts, who had taken their places, returned back to our planet. In addition to places for three cosmonauts, there were also all the necessary life support systems, spacecraft control and a parachute system. The third compartment of the Soyuz was the instrument-assembly compartment, in which the propulsion systems, fuel and service systems of the ship were installed. The power supply of the Soyuz spacecraft was carried out by solar panels and accumulators.
Tests of the first Soyuz spacecraft began at the end of 1966. The first flight of the apparatus, designated Kosmos-133 , took place on November 28, 1966. The second flight on December 14 of the same year ended with the explosion of a rocket with a ship on the launch pad, the third flight of the 7K-OK (Cosmos-140) apparatus took place on February 7, 1967. All three flights were completely or partially unsuccessful and helped the specialists to detect errors in the ship's design. Despite the absence of completely successful launches, the fourth and fifth flights were scheduled to be manned. This could not end well, and the launch of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft on April 23, 1967 ended in tragedy. The launch of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft from the very beginning was accompanied by a number of emergency situations, there were serious remarks about the operation of the spacecraft onboard systems, so it was decided to take the spacecraft out of orbit ahead of schedule, but on April 24, 1967, during landing, due to the failure of the parachute systems, the descent vehicle crashed. cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov died. Despite the tragedy, work on the creation and further improvement of the Soyuz manned spacecraft continued. The ship had obvious potential, which allows it to remain in service in 2019, moreover, on its basis, the Soviet military planned to create a number of military vehicles, which also prevented the program from closing, despite the failures of the first launches.
The first projects of military "Unions"
Back in 1964, in Kuibyshev (today Samara), in branch No. 3 of OKB-1 at the Progress plant, work began on the creation of the world's first manned orbital interceptor 7K-P or Soyuz-P. A year earlier, due to the heavy workload, all materials on the new versions of the "Union" for military purposes were transferred from OKB-1 to Kuibyshev. At the Progress plant, Dmitry Kozlov, the chief designer of the enterprise, supervised the creation of new versions of the military "Unions".
It is easy to guess that the 7K-P spacecraft was based on the design of an ordinary Soyuz spacecraft (7K), but with some changes. Initially, no weapons were planned on the space interceptor. The main task of the crew of a manned spacecraft would be the process of inspecting foreign space objects, primarily satellites belonging to the United States. It was planned that the crew of the 7K-P spacecraft would go into open space for this, where, if necessary, they would be able to disable the spacecraft of a potential enemy or place the vehicles in a specially created container for further sending to Earth. At the same time, it was decided to abandon the idea of such a use of the ship and the crew quite quickly. The reason was that all Soviet satellites of that period were equipped with a detonation system, the Soviet military assumed that the American satellites had the same system, which posed a threat to the lives of the astronauts and the interceptor ship itself.
The project of the Soyuz-P spacecraft was replaced by a full-fledged combat spacecraft, which received the designation Soyuz-PPK. The designers decided to equip this version of the Soyuz with batteries of 8 small space-to-space rockets, all the rockets were placed in the bow of the ship. This concept involved the destruction of spacecraft of a potential enemy without reconnaissance. The spacecraft did not differ much from the civil versions of the Soyuz in size, its length was 6.5 meters, diameter - 2.7 meters, and the spaceship's habitable volume was calculated for two cosmonauts and was 13 cubic meters. The total mass of the space interceptor was estimated at 6, 7 tons.
Simultaneously with the work on the creation of the Soyuz-PPK interceptor in Kuibyshev, work was underway to create an orbital reconnaissance aircraft, which was named the High-Altitude Explorer. This ship was also known under the designation 7K-VI and was developed as part of a project with the code designation "Zvezda". The base was still the civilian Soyuz 7K-OK, but the inside of the ship was completely different. The 7K-VI warship was supposed to carry out visual observation of the enemy satellites, conduct photographic reconnaissance, and, if necessary, hit the enemy's spacecraft. At the same time, work was underway to create the Soyuz-R warship in the reconnaissance version.
Already in 1965, it was decided to close the 7K-P and 7K-PPK projects. The reason was that in OKB-52, which was headed by the outstanding Soviet designer Vladimir Chelomey, they were simultaneously working on the creation of a fully automatic fighter for IS satellites, the concept of which was more suited to the Ministry of Defense. After that, the main theme of the Kuibyshev branch No. 3 of OKB-1 was the project of the 7K-R reconnaissance spacecraft. It was planned that Soyuz-R would become a full-fledged small-size orbital station, on which a complex of equipment for conducting radio reconnaissance and photographic reconnaissance would be installed. The prototype for the ship was again the base model of the Soyuz, first of all, its instrument and aggregate compartment, but instead of the descent and utility compartments, it was planned to install an orbital compartment with installed special purpose equipment. But the Soviet designers failed to implement this idea either. The Soyuz-R reconnaissance spacecraft project lost the competition to the Almaz reconnaissance station, which was selected by the competition commission and supported by representatives of the Scientific and Technical Council of the USSR Ministry of Defense. At the same time, all the developments of the Progress plant in Kuibyshev under the Soyuz-R project were transferred to OKB-52 for further work on the Almaz project.
Soyuz 7K-VI and the Zvezda program
The project of the high-altitude explorer 7K-VI lasted the longest of all the military options for using the Soyuz spacecraft. Work under the Zvezda program was initiated on August 24, 1965. The Soviet leadership was forced to accelerate work on the creation of military orbital systems for various purposes by the flight of the American Gemini-4 spacecraft, which took place in June of the same year. The flight of the Americans alerted the political and military leadership of the USSR, since in addition to the scientific and technical program, the crew of the Gemini-4 spacecraft performed a number of experiments in the interests of the Pentagon. Among other things, the crew observed the launches of ballistic missiles, photographed the Earth's surface on the night and day sides, and also practiced the process of approaching a space object, which was the second stage of the American Titan II rocket. In fact, it was an imitation of the inspection of satellites of a potential enemy.
At the first stage of work under the Zvezda program, the 7K-VI military apparatus differed little from the civilian manned ship 7K-OK. The ship also consisted of three compartments, which were installed one after the other in the same sequence. However, in 1966, Dmitry Kozlov, the leading designer of the Progress plant, decided to completely revise the project. The new version of the military researcher involved a change in layout, the descent vehicle and the orbital compartment were to be swapped. After the changes, the capsule with the astronauts was placed on top. Under the astronauts' seats there was a hatch leading down into the cylindrical orbital compartment, the compartment itself increased in size. The ship's crew was supposed to consist of two people, the maximum weight was 6, 6 tons.
A distinctive feature of the new military "Union" was the presence of weapons in the form of a rapid-fire 23-mm automatic aircraft gun NR-23 Nudelman-Richter, which was adapted for use in space. The gun was mounted on top of the descent vehicle. The designers have adapted the tool to work in a vacuum. The main purpose of the automatic cannon was to protect a military researcher from interceptor satellites and inspection ships of a potential enemy. To aim an automatic cannon at a target, the crew had to turn the entire ship, and use a sight to aim. Especially to test the possibility of using the gun in space, large-scale tests were carried out on a dynamic stand specially built for this purpose. Tests have confirmed the possibility of using the gun in space, the recoil from firing would not have led to somersaults of the 7K-VI apparatus.
The main instrument of the 7K-VI spacecraft was supposed to be an OSK-4 optical sight with a camera. The vizier was planned to be installed on the side window and used for military research. With its help, the astronaut could observe and photograph the surface of our planet. Also in the side window it was possible to place special equipment designed to monitor the launches of ballistic missiles called "Lead". The design feature was the rejection of the use of solar panels. Kozlov decided to abandon this heavy and large structure, which had to be constantly oriented towards the sun. Instead, it was planned to install two radioisotope thermogenerators on board the military Soyuz. The electrical energy needed to power the ship's systems was converted from heat generated by the radioactive decay of plutonium.
Despite some success, the Zvezda project was also not brought to its logical conclusion. Even in spite of the fact that by the middle of 1967 a wooden model of the future ship was made in Kuibyshev, as well as a preliminary design and a full-size 7K-VI model were assembled. At the same time, the date for the first flight of the new warship was approved - the end of 1968. However, in January 1968, the project was closed. The initiator of the closure of the Zvezda program was V. P. Mishin, who held the post of chief designer of TsKBEM - Central Design Bureau for Experimental Mechanical Engineering (since 1966, they began to call OKB-1). Mishin's arguments were quite convincing, the designer noted that it was not worth duplicating the already existing 7K-OK ship, which could always be modified up to the installation of weapons and solve the same problems. At the same time, one of the main reasons could be the reluctance of the engineers and management of TsKBEM to lose the monopoly on manned flights.
