In March 1983, the former actor, who switched from work in the film industry to a political career, announced the start of work on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Today, the SDI program, which was described by the 33rd US President Ronald Reagan, is better known under the cinematic title "Star Wars". The American president’s speech on the wave of another surge of tension between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War predictably led to a backlash from Moscow.
The Soviet Union is embroiled in yet another round of the arms race in space. In response, the USSR worked on the creation of various orbital vehicles that could be launched into space using a new super-heavy launch vehicle Energia, as well as the reusable Buran spacecraft. Among the new developments were various combat orbital means, which received the names "Cascade", "Bolide", but today we will talk about another spacecraft - the combat orbital laser "Skif".
Soviet SDI
As soon as mankind discovered space for itself, the military raised their eyes to the stars. Moreover, the most obvious and first task that was solved by practical cosmonautics was the possibility of using outer space for various military purposes. Corresponding projects were and were considered both in the United States and in the Soviet Union already in the 1950s. The visible result of such projects was anti-satellite weapons; only in the USSR in the 1960s and 80s, dozens of tests of anti-satellite weapons, including satellite fighters, were carried out. The first maneuvering satellite in the Soviet Union, named Polet-1, appeared in space as early as November 1, 1963; Polet-1 was the prototype of an interceptor satellite.
The last launch of such an apparatus was successfully carried out on June 18, 1982 as part of a large-scale exercise of the strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union; in the West, these exercises went down in history as the "Seven-Hour Nuclear War." During the exercises, the USSR launched both sea-based and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, launched interceptor missiles and launched military satellites, including a satellite fighter. The American leadership was greatly impressed by the exercises of the Soviet nuclear forces. A month after the completion of the exercises, Reagan made a statement about the deployment of an American anti-satellite system, and in March of the following year publicly announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which quickly received the unofficial and spectacular name "Star Wars", of course, the name was directly related to the popular art the movie.
But do not think that the US military and engineers began working on the SDI program after the president's statement. In the United States, such research and scientific and project activities were developed already in the early 1970s. At the same time, American designers considered a large number of projects, among which there were exotic ones, but the main ones involved the deployment of laser, kinetic and beam weapons in space. In our country, research work in this direction also began in the mid-1970s, employees of NPO Energia worked on the creation of options for strike space weapons. The tasks that the leadership of the Soviet Union set for the specialists of NPO Energia resembled the same tasks that were voiced by Ronald Reagan in March 1983. The main goal of the Soviet "Star Wars" was the creation of space assets that would destroy military spacecraft of a potential enemy, ICBMs during flight and hit land, sea and air objects of particular importance.
The work on the creation of the Soviet SDI consisted mainly in examining various scenarios of combat operations in earth orbit, scientific research, theoretical calculations, determining the advantages of certain types of weapons that can be placed on board spacecraft. At the same time, specialized literature notes that over the entire period of development in the USSR of spacecraft necessary to confront the American SDI, such work was never so well coordinated, was not of such a purposeful nature and did not have such volumes of funding as in the United States.
As a means of destroying space stations and military vehicles, a single space platform was considered, which would be equipped with a different set of onboard weapons: missiles and a laser installation. Two new combat spacecraft were created by NPO Energia engineers. As the base platform, Soviet engineers chose the well-known orbital station 17K DOS, besides, the research and production association had a wealth of experience in operating spacecraft of this type. On the basis of a single platform, two combat systems were developed, which received the designation 17F111 "Cascade" with missile weapons and 17F19 "Skif" with laser weapons.
Combat orbital laser "Skif"
Quite quickly, the Soviet Union considered the fight against intercontinental ballistic missiles a difficult task. For this reason, the main customer of the project of the USSR Ministry of Defense decided to focus on creating effective models of anti-satellite weapons. This is a pragmatic and understandable solution, considering that it is more difficult to detect and then destroy an ICBM or a warhead that has separated from a missile than to disable an enemy satellite or space station. In fact, the USSR was working on the anti-SDI program. The main emphasis was placed on the destruction of American combat spacecraft, their incapacitation was to deprive the states of protection against Soviet ICBMs. This decision was fully consistent with the Soviet military doctrine, according to which initially the American stations and SDI vehicles were to be destroyed, which would allow launching ballistic missiles at targets located on enemy territory.
It was planned to install an existing laser on the new spacecraft. Fortunately, there was a suitable sample of a megawatt laser in the USSR at that time. Naturally, the laser still needed to be tested in space. Specialists from one of the branches of the Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy were involved in the creation of an airborne laser installation in our country. The engineers of the institute have created a working gas-dynamic laser. The developed laser system, designed to be placed on board the Il-76MD aircraft and operating on carbon dioxide, had already passed flight tests by 1983. The possibility of placing such a laser in the earth's orbit appeared thanks to the creation of the Energia launch vehicle, which had a suitable payload launch rate.
The first orbital laser received the designation "Skif-D", the letter "D" in the name meant a demonstration one. It was primarily an experimental spacecraft, on which the Soviet military expected to test not only the laser itself, but also a certain list of standard systems (motion control, power supply, separation and orientation) intended for installation on other spacecraft, which were also developed within the framework of the Soviet analogue of "Star Wars".
The first device "Skif-D" had the following design features. The orbital laser station consisted of two modules: CM - target module and FSB - functional and service module. They were connected to each other by a rigid coupling. The FSB module was used for additional acceleration of the spacecraft after separation from the launch vehicle. To enter the reference low-earth orbit, the module added the required 60 m / s speed. In addition to the pre-acceleration function, the FSB also played the role of storage for all the main service systems of the spacecraft. To provide the ship's systems with electrical energy, solar panels were placed on the module, the same ones were used on the Transport Supply Ship (TSS). In fact, the FSB itself was a supply ship for orbital stations of the Salyut type, well mastered by the Soviet industry.
Unlike the module described above, the target module of the combat orbital laser did not have prototypes. The CM included three compartments for different purposes: ORT - a compartment for working bodies; OE - energy compartment and OSA - special equipment compartment. In the first, the designers placed cylinders filled with CO2, the main purpose of which was to power the laser system. It was planned to install two electric turbine generators with a total capacity of 2.4 MW in the energy compartment. As you might guess, there was a combat laser in the last remaining compartment, and there was also a place for placing the SNU - a guidance and containment system. The head of the OSA module was rotated relative to the rest of the spacecraft, since the Soviet designers took care of facilitating the guidance of the laser installation at the target.
A large amount of work was done in the Soviet design bureaus, one of the developments was a round head fairing, which protected the functional unit. For the first time in the Soviet Union, no metal was used for the production of the head fairing, it was carbon fiber. The first device "Skif-DM" - a demonstration mock-up - differed in the same overall and weight characteristics that a combat orbital laser would have received. The maximum diameter of the device was 4.1 meters, length - 37 meters, weight - about 80 tons. It was "Skif-DM" that was the only spacecraft launched into space, which was developed in the Soviet Union under the program to create a combat orbital laser "Skif", the same event was the first launch of a super-heavy class "Energiya" launch vehicle.
First launch of Energia
The Energia rocket became the personification of the power and achievements of the Soviet space program. It has forever remained the most powerful in the line of Soviet launch vehicles, and in the Russian Federation there has not been a single launch of a rocket that could approach Energia in its capabilities, which could put up to 100 tons of payload into low-earth orbit. Neither before nor after it has super-heavy missiles been built in the USSR and Russia.
On May 15, 1987, the super-heavy rocket Energia took off from the launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome. It is worth noting that there were two launches in total. The second became much more famous, as it was carried out as part of the tests of the Soviet space shuttle "Buran". The successful launch into space of a Soviet super-heavy carrier rocket for world cosmonautics was sensational, the appearance of such a rocket opened up tempting prospects not only for the Soviet Union, but for the whole world. In the first flight, the rocket launched the Polyus apparatus into space, as it was called in the media. In reality, the "Polyus" was a dynamic model of the combat laser orbital platform "Skif" (17F119). The payload was impressive, the dynamic model of the future orbital laser weighed more than 80 tons.
Launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the overall weight model of the future station fully corresponded in mass and size to the created orbital laser. Initially, Energia with a payload in the form of a Skif-DM model was going to be sent into space in September 1986, but the launch was postponed several times. As a result, the Skif-DM complex was docked with the rocket and fully prepared for launch only in April next year. As a result, an important event for the history of Russian cosmonautics took place on May 15, 1987, the delay on the launch day was 5 hours. In flight, two stages of the super-heavy launch vehicle Energia worked in the normal mode, the overall weight model Skif-DM successfully separated from the launch vehicle 460 seconds after launch, this happened at an altitude of 110 km. But then the problems began. Due to an error in the electrical circuit switching, the reversal of the dynamic layout of the combat laser station after separation from the missile lasted longer than the planned time. As a result, the dynamic model did not go into a given near-earth orbit and fell along a ballistic trajectory to the Earth's surface in the Pacific Ocean. Despite the setback, a post-launch report found that 80 percent of the planned experiments were successful. It is known that the flight program of the Skif-DM spacecraft provided for six geophysical and four applied experiments.
The launch of a full-fledged combat station with a laser on board never happened. And the Energia itself managed to make only two flights. In the midst of perestroika, the collapse of the country and the collapse of the economy, there was no time for Star Wars. In 1991, the program, which was a response to the US Strategic Defense Initiative, was completely abandoned. Overseas work within the SDI project was finally stopped by 1993, the efforts of American designers and engineers also did not lead to the creation of space-based laser or beam weapons.
