On September 12, the website of the Federal Space Agency published an ordinary, at first glance, message from the category of those that the general public usually does not read. In the “News” section, it was announced the opening of tenders for the right to conclude government contracts. According to lot No. 43, the subject of the contract with deadlines in October 2011 - December 2012 was “elimination of solid-propellant rocket engines and charges of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) of the Kurier, Velocity, Topol-M missile systems and ballistic missiles for submarine boats (SLBM) "Bark".
With the third and fourth names in this list, everything seems to be clear - they are constantly heard, as well as "Yars" and "Bulava". Topol-M is a silo-based or mobile-based missile system. Mine RK is equipped with Tatishchevskoe, and mobile - Teikovskoe formations of the Strategic Missile Forces. The expert community and journalists remembered about the Bark SLBM every time there were problems with the Bulava (God forbid, there won't be any more). But what the Courier and Velocity missiles are (in the announcement of the tender, the latter was mistakenly called ICBMs) is known to a very limited circle of specialists. But both these "products" and the people who created them deserve a detailed story. Although information about these unique missiles developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering (MIT) is very difficult to find in open sources.
Not needed
The Velocity solid-propellant medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) has been designed under the guidance of MIT Director - Chief Designer Alexander Nadiradze since 1982. It was intended to arm the Strategic Missile Forces and the Ground Forces. It was supposed to be used to destroy enemy targets in European theaters of operations using both nuclear and conventional warheads.
The creation of the next mobile "invisible" MIT was completed in 1986. Flight design tests of the "Executioner of Europe" began on March 1, 1987 at the Kapustin Yar test site - they made one test launch of the rocket. After that, by the decision of the rulers of the USSR of that time, in connection with the preparation of the future Soviet-American Treaty on the Destruction of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Ballistic Missiles, on March 7, 1987, further work on Speed was curtailed.
This MRBM could indeed hold at gunpoint all potential targets in Europe. She had a maximum flight range of four thousand kilometers. Its main know-how was a unique control system, which allowed, speaking in the slang of missilemen, to hit the stake created by the Moscow Research Institute of Automation and Instrumentation, headed by Nikolai Pilyugin (later - Vladimir Lapygin) and the Sverdlovsk NPO Automatics, headed by Nikolai Semikhatov.
Since 1981, the Kurier ICBM has also been developed at the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering under the leadership of Alexander Nadiradze. The Armed Forces of the USSR were to transfer a small-sized solid-propellant mobile rocket, the dimensions of which made it possible to place it in a conventional refrigerated container. Thousands of such containers moved across the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. And try to determine in which of them frozen meat is transported, and in which - a formidable "product" with a monoblock nuclear warhead of considerable power.
The impossibility of detection - that's what was supposed to be the main trump card of the "Courier". In addition, the creators of the rocket were able to solve an almost impossible task - to provide an intercontinental range and a very fast launch (the latter is extremely important, given that the enemy has a developed missile defense system) with a launch weight of only 15 tons.
The preliminary design of the Courier was completed in 1984. As follows from the aforementioned tender offer, the designers' plan was successfully embodied in metal. But the fate of the ICBM was not the one that the MIT employees had hoped for. As Mikhail Petrov writes in the book "Rocket Weapons of the Strategic Missile Forces", "flight tests (of the" Courier ") were supposed to begin in 1992, but they were canceled due to political and economic reasons."
The opinion of a competent person
And now Colonel A., who served in the General Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces, will put in a word for "Courier".
“The Kurier strategic missile system was to become a further development of the unique direction of Soviet rocketry, embodied in mobile ground-based missile systems (PGRK),” the officer recalled. “Its creation was carried out using the latest materials and technologies for its time, many of which were lost during the period of“turmoil”."
Why was such a complex needed? Couldn't the mobile and mining RC Topol-M and also Yars become an alternative to it? No, the colonel thinks.
“With all the belief in the invulnerability of these complexes of their creator - respected, in spite of everything, Yuri Solomonov - it is obvious that by the end of the 80s of the last century, a potential adversary (now it is more politically correct to talk about a“partner”) had the opportunity to by technical means of reconnaissance, to reveal the location of the Topol mobile launchers at field combat launch positions and to determine their coordinates with high accuracy. Moreover, it took him no more than a day. In order to provide the necessary secrecy, our missilemen were forced to change field positions with a high frequency, which was extremely difficult for people and destructive for equipment - the motor resource of the launcher engines was rather limited."
“Heavy and large-sized self-propelled launchers weighing more than 100 tons could not be hidden from the US optical and radar reconnaissance space assets,” the expert says. - In addition, not all bridges and roads in Russia (alas, Russia is not Belarus, where the road infrastructure for the Pioneer missile systems, and then for the Topol missile systems was created in advance) could withstand these mastodons, which limited the maneuverability of the PGRK in positional areas ". "As a result, the most important advantage of mobility was lost - the uncertainty for a potential enemy of the location of self-propelled launchers," he believes. - Even then, 20 years ago, it became clear (unfortunately, not for everyone) that this direction of maintaining strategic stability with the West is reaching an impasse. Then it was decided to develop a small-sized mobile-based missile system, called "Courier".
“The basis of the new missile system was to be an ICBM weighing no more than 15 tons, with a monoblock warhead of a sufficiently high power. Its main and most important advantage should have been its small dimensions and weight, - noted the expert of the military-industrial complex. “This would make it possible to disguise combat vehicles as conventional road trains and move freely on public roads. This property turned the missile system from a ground-based system into a highway one - there was no need to hide in the forests and move around in the dark."
"The appearance of the Kurier in the combat composition of the Strategic Missile Forces would lead to a revolution in the combat use of this earlier - type, now - kind of the Armed Forces and would significantly strengthen the security of Russia," the specialist is sure. He noted that the then commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, General of the Army Yuri Maksimov, later recalled that the most serious attention was paid to the completion of the development of the Kurier missile system with a small-sized missile: it was planned that the Strategic Missile Forces, together with the Topols, would have over 700 units. …
“In 1991, the rocket was ready for testing, - recalled Colonel A. - However, due to the well-known events, the work was suspended and later closed.” But in vain. And even if our expert cited the opinion of one of the high-ranking generals of the Strategic Missile Forces, who several years ago said that “it is impossible to resume work on the Kurier due to the loss of a number of technologies for creating special materials, components and assemblies,” a missile of this type is needed by the Strategic Missile Forces and the country in whole, like air. Why?
In any case, when the mobile Topol-M and Yarsy are on alert at field combat launch positions, they are increasingly visible to spacecraft equipped with synthetic aperture radars. The latter are able to recognize changes in the terrain up to five centimeters high, and no matter how you hide the launcher, its height in the suspended position is about six meters. Such a change in the height of the relief cannot be hidden by any means of camouflage. The only question is the frequency of the overflight of a particular area by satellites with SAR capabilities, which so far depends on the number of spacecraft of this type in orbit.
Hiding from these satellites could, can and could in the future, only two types of missile systems from among those that the "invincible and legendary" had or which she was preparing to receive. This is the same "Courier" and a combat railway missile system (BZHRK), which outwardly resembled an ordinary passenger train. But he has not been in the ranks for a long time. Therefore, many experts believe that in the context of the rapid improvement of space reconnaissance means from foreign "partners", the Russian Strategic Missile Forces should receive something of the "Courier" type and (or) BZHRK, with the obligatory presence in their combat strength as a weighty addition to a new heavy liquid-propellant missile.
Meanwhile …
The grimace of fate. In the period from December 19, 2006 to July 22, 2008, according to the contract concluded by the German company OHB System AG with Rosoboronexport and the Omsk PO Polet, the Russian Space Forces launched five German satellites into the near-earth space with the help of launch vehicles of the Kosmos-3M type. type SAR-Lupe in the interests of the Bundeswehr, which thus acquired its first space reconnaissance system.
These devices weighing 720 kilograms each are equipped with equipment that makes it possible to obtain images of the earth's surface in any illumination and any weather conditions with a resolution of less than one meter. Satellites can recognize moving vehicles, airplanes, and also identify other objects, such as firing positions and military equipment. The satellites are in orbits about 500 kilometers in height in three different planes and fly around the Earth in 90 minutes. The maximum response time of the system to a request is 11 hours.
And now, ideally, after the passage of each such satellite, the Topols and Yars need to change positions while in the field, which is hardly realistic. But there are also American and French space spies …
