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Soviets in space (15)
The NRO is watching you !

September 21, 1975
Washington DC

For the CIA the massive Soviet lunar booster was the J-vehicle. And the CIA knew of its existence for a very long time, with NASA administrator James Webb regularly briefed about it during the Apollo days.
Although the CIA had missed the first launch (and failure) of the J vehicle in February 1969, it did not miss the second launch and its spectacular failure. The first American to see signs of the damage it caused was a former Navy Chief Petty Officer named Jack Rooney.

Six years later Rooney was still holding his fascinating job. Day after day he peered through Corona, Gambit and Hexagon imagery of the Soviet Union and particularly of the Baikonur launch complex.
That day of 1975 Rooney was at work one day in the massive windowless building known as the National Photographic Interpretation Center. The seven-story building, was originally used for manufacturing battleship guns during World War I. It was located in the Washington Navy Yard, near the Potomac River, in a run-down area of Washington, DC.

Rooney had left the Navy after a long career and was now working as a photo-interpreter, or PI, in NPIC’s Missiles and Space Division. NPIC was administered by the Central Intelligence Agency, but included photo-interpreters from the military services as well. There were all kinds of different analysts at the CIA, and a lot of them tended to look down their noses at the photo-interpreters at NPIC, who they thought were largely intelligence grunts: mere bean-counters and not true “analysts.” But often the photo-interpreters produced the first definitive reports of major events behind the iron curtain.

Rooney had just been given a roll of duplicate positive film from the latest KH-9 HEXAGON satellite reconnaissance mission to fly over the Soviet Union.

Unlike a negative, a positive looks like the object that is photographed, and when light is shown through it the film reveals a high-quality image, much better than a paper print. HEXAGON had overflown the vast Soviet rocket test facility at Tyura-Tam located in Kazakhstan. It had taken some time for the satellite to return its film back to Earth, and more time for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, to process the film and make duplicate negatives and positives.

Now Rooney’s job was to conduct the “first phase” review of the Tyura-Tam facility, looking for any changes at the launch complex since the last mission had flown over it more than a month earlier at over two hundred kilometers altitude. Other members of the branch also received their film and were looking at other facilities, like the Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar launch ranges. The highest priority images, however, were not the launch ranges, but the operational ICBM sites, and several of Rooney’s co-workers were also looking at those. They looked at the film as soon as it came in, no matter what time of the day it came in. Often they worked through the night, writing up quick summaries of what they saw which they cabled to the White House and the Pentagon.

Rooney took the film roll back to his light table and removed it from its small film can, which was roughly the diameter of a compact disc and about eight centimeters tall. The film was on a spool, and he clamped the spool on one side of his light table, ran the 70 millimeter film over the frosted glass surface of the table, and then taped the end to the take-up reel on the other side of his table. He turned on the lights underneath the table glass and then began winding the take-up reel, pulling the long, thin black-and-white film strip across the lighted table. Each frame was only 70 millimeters wide, and about a meter long, and depicted a huge amount of Soviet territory covering hundreds of square kilometers on the ground. Printed on one side of the film were the words “TOP SECRET RUFF” and the mission number, the date, the orbit (divided into ascending and descending passes), and the frame number.

Rooney reached the by now very familiar image of the Tyura-Tam launch range, which he had seen hundreds of times before. Thin roadways spread out from larger roadways to reach to the various buildings and apartment complexes and missile silos and large launch pads of Tyura-Tam in the Kazakh desert. From high above, the complex roughly had the shape of a letter “Y”, with the base of the Y connecting to a dock facility on the Syr Darya River.
His dual-eyepiece microscope was mounted on runners above the light table so that he could slide it over the film and look down at the images at very high magnification. He slid it into place.

Rooney looked at Launch Complex A first. That was the first launch pad built at Tyura-Tam and the most heavily used. It was where Sputnik first shot into space in 1957, and where Yuri Gagarin followed in 1961. It was essentially the center of the complex that American PI’s called “TT”. It was near the juncture of the Y-shaped road complex, with other launch complexes stretching out to the northwest and the northeast and the base of the Y running almost due south. Launch Complex A was very distinct, with a massive pear-shaped flame trench for venting the exhaust from the rocket that the CIA had designated the SS-6, and the Russians called the R-7.

Rooney then slid his microscope only a few centimeters over to the northwest, an amount of film equivalent to several kilometers on the ground, and looked at the massive Launch Complex J, the site of the Soviet equivalent to the Saturn V Launch Complex 39 at Cape Canaveral. It was surrounded by several perimeter fences, what the PI’s somewhat comically called “horizontal security,” intended to keep intruders out on the ground, but which stood out like a sore thumb from above, providing no security from that direction. He adjusted the focus.

Rooney light table also had a Polaroid attachment that allowed him to take instant photos of the image. He pressed the button and made Polaroid shots, which the men passed around the room. His division head, David Doyle, came by and also took a look through the microscope.

Rooney called for his colleagues. "Look at that. It seems that our Soviet friends rolled out another J vehicle." As usual the Hexagon pictures were extremely sharp.

In August 1974 as America struggled with the Watergate scandal revelation of the Soviet manned lunar program had been a major shock. There had been no J-vehicle launch in 1975, but now another monster rocket was standing over the Baikonur launch complex. "It seems that they have repaired the massive damage caused by the July 1969 explosion." Rooney remembered all too well the pictures taken by a Corona at the time. Although Corona lacked the sharpness of Gambit or Hexagon, even at lower resolution large scale destruction was shockingly apparent.

The grillwork covering the trifoil flame trenches had been blown away. One of the two adjacent lightning towers was also knocked down. The scorch marks spread all around the hole in the center of the launch pad. One of the pad’s two large lightning towers had been knocked down. The grillwork covering the three flame trenches was also collapsed. There was considerable scorching around the pad. In 1970 Rooney noted the construction of a rail line to the pad to enable removal of the debris. Of course the Soviets had a second launch pad for the J-vehicle, and two of them launched in 1971 and 1972, without success.

Now the second pad was back in operation, and probably the J-vehicle would launch on a regular basis. What worried Rooney hierarchy was the payloads – was that J-vehicle carrying a manned lunar landing complex or something else ?

The CIA analysts didn't had to wait for long.

Some times later the TASS Soviet press agency relayed a message from the Soviet science academy.
"Today the Soviet Union launched a large rover to Mars surface. In the continuity of the highly successfull Lunokhods, the nuclear-powered, (5kW) Marsokhod will perform a 100 km long geological traverse across the Martian landscape."
Rooney and his hierarchy were baffled. "They take a goddam enormous lunar rocket to lift a rover to Mars. The TASS press release says the large spacecraft weights 45 000 pounds during the transmars cruise. The rover by itself weights nearly 6000 pounds !"

"That's remind me of the first Voyager, the one that was to go to Mars. It was to use a Saturn V, but fucking Congress cut in in summer 1967 as they saw it as a foot-in-the-door for manned Mars missions. Do you remember it ? They were to launch on Saturn V in 1973, 1975 and 1977. Not that Viking did a bad job, but, frankly, the Titan IIIE pale in comparison with the goddam J-vehicle. At least it works superbly; it doesn't ravage its launch pad." Rooney laughed.

Over the next months the Gambit and Hexagon spy satellites unmasked more changes from Baikonur. Early in the year 1977 a new rocket the size of a Proton was rolled out of the MIK-112 building. On the Gambit sharp pictures it looked somewhat similar to a N-1 albeit much smaller and with a thinner base. The West did not immediately realized that the N-11 (code-named SL-16) was a N-1 cut of its troublesome block A stage 1; it was to replace the Proton.

Through the sharp eyes of the Gambit and Hexagon spysats Rooney and his colleague soon discovered important changes to Baikonur. From 1973 onwards Area 250 in Baikonur was created near Area 110, the massive dual launch complex of the N-1.

Area 250 had a dual role.

First, the new N-11 would lift-off there, from a couple of medium-size launch pads build for it. N-11 assembly was done in the MIK-112 enormous building, next to the stored N-1s. Although much lighter, in order to save money the N-11 used the N-1 enormous rail-tracked erector system. The new pads were rail-linked to Area 110.
Secondly, an enormous test stand was build there for pre-launch firings of the N-1 block A. In the mid-80's Glushko's Polyblock was ground-fired on the same test stand that had to be modified to run on storable propellants.The Soviet plan was to ensure reliability of the N-1 upper stages through many N-11 flights in replacement of the Proton. With the upper stages made reliable, a new superheavy launcher would be re-created by mating the N-11 with an extremely powerful first stage.The now ground-tested Block A would be flown on N-1 boosters 10L, 11L, 12L, 13L and 14L, most of these flights dedicated to MKBS-1 and eventually, MKBS-2 enormous space stations.
N1 8L and 9L still didn't tested their first stage on the ground since the stand was not completed as of 1974-75. But the two missions were mostly filler – the first with a completely automated lunar landing complex, the second with the big 4NM Marsokhod. Payloads were still secondary to N-1 reliable flights, but against all odds the N-1s survived beyond stage 1 separation, although the improved KORD system shut some engines during early ascent.

These incidents convinced Mishin and his successor Chertok that the Block A should be ground tested from booster 10L. As such, the N-1 10L payload – the enormous 5NM Mars sample Return probe – was pushed back to 1979 so that its N-1 block A could be ground-tested on the new bench in Area 250. By a curious irony however Marsokhod failed just after a succesful landing and in 1978 spacecraft 5NM was send to development hell with its N-1 launcher. At least N-1 10L paved the way to ground-testing of the first stage.

Once the supply of Block A exhausted, a new N-1 - the N-1M - would be created with Glushko Polyblock as stage 1. With six RD-270s it would be (hopefully) more reliable than Kuznetsov Block A and its thirty engines... At a later date the toxic storable propellants in the RD-270 were to be replaced by LOX/kerosene, creating the RD-116 - and engine very much a Soviet F-1.

After a seven years hiatus ground-testing of the RD-270 started again in 1977, with various problems plaguing test firings. Torturous development of that engine continued from 1977 to 1987, presenting some of the most serious challenges before engineers at Moscow-based NPO Energomash led at the time by Valentin Glushko. Instability of combustion was extremely troublesome, so much that in 1984 Glushko had to postpone development of the RD-116 and focuse all energy on the troubled RD-270.

In 1982 one RD-270 botched tests at NPO Energomash test facility on the outskirts of Moscow reportedly ended with a massive explosion that sent a heavy metal cover of the troubled engine's turbopump several miles away concluding with an impact on the runway of Moscow's main international airport in Sheremetievo! After that fiasco it was decided to move testing to Baikonur Area 250, with the ultimate goal of firing a phase 2 polyblock with RD-116s instead of RD-270s, but the Soviet Union collapsed as the first RD-116 was run on Glushko test bench near Moscow.

Glushko Polyblock program never had high priority since there were just enough N-1s stored in MIK-112 to launch a couple of MKBS large space station trios of core modules. The Polyblock-upgraded N-1 had no clear mission nor payload– although Glushko considered a lunar base as the next logical step beyond the MKBS, the Soviet leadership was hardly interested.
(note: this entry is partially adapted from this by space historian Dwayne A. Day)
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