A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster
- Thread starter nixonshead
- Start date
Airplanes? That's like, suborbital stuff, right??
I've done a couple over the years (e.g. the alternate Air Force One from Kolyma's Shadow), but it's not my area of focus. The art so far is all my own, except for book covers and the diagram taken from the Presidential Briefing in the last post. I'm hoping to showcase some illustrations from another talented artist later in the TL.They will be aware of the fire, and there will be an investigation afterwards - like OTL, but wothout the trubopump explosion.
Feel free to pilfer them if they still fit! As for the upper stages... well, let's see below...
It goes to show, skimping on ground tests is usually penny wise and pound foolish.
Thanks! The eagle-eyed may be able to spot black smoke coming from the Blok-A fire, but it's mostly hidden in Blok-B's rocket plume. The white vapour from Blok-A is inspired by images like this of the Saturn V staging (with the hydrolox S-II producing a less colourful plume than the keroloc Blok-B), and I assume is unburnt propellant vapours:
That's from the real report. The CIA apparently remained unaware of the 3L launch for some time.
Staging the shutdown of the centre engines was the plan for later N-1s, though IOTL they never got the chance to demonstrate it.
Thanks!
Let's see...
We'll definately be exploring this in future updates.
Interlude : The View from the West
Interlude : The View from the West
- Excerpt from “The Soviet Manned Space Programme”, by Phillip Clark, published by Salamander, London, 1988.
The Giant Booster
For any manned lunar mission there is one further vital element required: a booster in the Saturn V class. No such booster placed a Soviet payload in orbit during 1968-1971, although there were intelligence reports that two large boosters (Type-G or SL-15 vehicles) were prepared for flight. The first is believed to have exploded on the launch pad on 3-4 July 1969 while being fuelled in readiness for launch. The second was launched on 24-25 March 1971 but disintegrated at an altitude of about 12km.[1] Then, on 12 June 1972 Moscow Radio announced that a new heavy lift rocket named Groza had been successfully launched from “Baikonur Cosmodrome”. This was the first Soviet admission that they had a large booster under development.
Although few details were announced at the time, the Soviet Union has since released a considerable amount of information on the rocket. In its basic form the Groza[2] SL-15 is a three stage vehicle, with all stages using liquid oxygen and kerosene (a propellant combination which was used on the Sputnik-Vostok-Soyuz family of launch vehicles). The first stage is powered by 30 engines from the Kuznetsov Bureau, with a combined thrust of 4,600 tonnes. The second and third stages use engines of a similar type, with eight on the second stage and four engines on the third stage. For the initial launches, two further upper stages were used. The fourth stage was used to place the payload into a parking orbit and later provided the impulse needed to place the payload on a trans-lunar trajectory. The fifth stage was used for deep space manoeuvres and was identical to the upper stage previously flown with the Proton SL-12 rocket. These fourth and fifth stages were later replaced by a single oxygen-hydrogen stage.
Zond 9
The payload for the first Groza launch was Zond 9. Despite sharing a designation with the earlier unmanned circumlunar spacecraft, it is clear that Zond 9 was a new design much larger than the previous probes in the series. After completing two orbits of the Earth, Zond 9 was placed onto a lunar trajectory by the Groza fourth stage, which was then observed to separate from the payload. A course correction manoeuvre was applied on 15 June at a distance of 320 thousand km from Earth. It was widely expected that Zond 9 would enter lunar orbit, but no further manoeuvres were performed and the craft passed behind the Moon on 16 June at a minimum distance of 2,800km. Radio telemetry continued to be received from the probe until 22 June, after which all contact was lost. The Soviets made the following official announcement regarding the mission:
“In accordance with the space research programme, automated probe Zond 9 has successfully completed its mission and has entered a solar orbit as an artificial planet. According to telemetric data, all the systems and assemblies on board and the scientific equipment functioned as designed. Scientists are analysing the results, which will further our understanding of the Moon and deep space.”
Official Soviet sources have provided few details of this “Heavy Zond”, but many Western observers believe this was an unmanned test of hardware for a lunar landing system for cosmonauts.
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[1] This is all verbatim as identified in the OTL book. Apparently, even as late as 1987, Western civilian Soviet-watchers remained unaware of the N1-3L launch in February 1969.
[2] IOTL of course, N-1 never got a true name, and indeed was kept secret for years. Soviet practice was usually to name their rockets once they went operational, often taking the name from their first payload (e.g. Vostok, Molniya, Proton). Energia only got its name a few days before launch. ITTL, with a successful launch, the Soviet authorities want a name to put on the press releases, and this is it.
The name Groza (Гроза, pronounced “Grah-zah”) means “Thunderstorm”, fitting into an OTL trend of Soviet space vehicles being named for violent weather events, as well as being the name of a politically relevant play, which was popular with both the Communist Party and the public.
It also lets me reference Bradbury for my timeline’s title.
I considered using the name “Raskat”, which is the name of the N-1 launch complex and is usually translated as “peal of thunder”, but after consulting with a Russian friend I discovered that it’s also a term widely used for “steamroller”, which didn’t quite have the space-age feel I was looking for.
Will we see alternate sci-fi about Soviets travelling into prehistoric time and causing time waves in the present? 👉👈
Yes, ITTL the T-72 will be phased out by 1980 and the opening thrust into West Germany will be spearheaded by these things:
As an additional linguistic note, "Groza" shares a root with "Grozny," meaning "terrible, horrible," and most famous as the epithet for Ivan IV. So if one stretches, it's also kind of in keeping with the custom of naming very large things the "Tsar [$Object]."
Still Groza has clearly worked this time despite the issues with the first stage and it clearly remains in service long enough to get upgrades.
TRANSLATION: Automated probe Zond 9 has failed its mission and missed the moon. We don't have telemetric data, so at least some of the systems and assemblies on board and the scientific equipment did not function as designed. Scientists are analysing the results, which will further our understanding of what went wrong, we suspect quality control. Still at least the rocket worked.
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When you’re so geeky you alter Clark’s book for your own needs. Peak space geekiness,amirite?
Interlude : The View from the West
- Excerpt from “The Soviet Manned Space Programme”, by Phillip Clark, published by Salamander, London, 1988.
The Giant Booster
For any manned lunar mission there is one further vital element required: a booster in the Saturn V class. No such booster placed a Soviet payload in orbit during 1968-1971, although there were intelligence reports that two large boosters (Type-G or SL-15 vehicles) were prepared for flight. The first is believed to have exploded on the launch pad on 3-4 July 1969 while being fuelled in readiness for launch. The second was launched on 24-25 March 1971 but disintegrated at an altitude of about 12km.[1] Then, on 12 June 1972 Moscow Radio announced that a new heavy lift rocket named Groza had been successfully launched from “Baikonur Cosmodrome”. This was the first Soviet admission that they had a large booster under development.
Although few details were announced at the time, the Soviet Union has since released a considerable amount of information on the rocket. In its basic form the Groza[2] SL-15 is a three stage vehicle, with all stages using liquid oxygen and kerosene (a propellant combination which was used on the Sputnik-Vostok-Soyuz family of launch vehicles). The first stage is powered by 30 engines from the Kuznetsov Bureau, with a combined thrust of 4,600 tonnes. The second and third stages use engines of a similar type, with eight on the second stage and four engines on the third stage. For the initial launches, two further upper stages were used. The fourth stage was used to place the payload into a parking orbit and later provided the impulse needed to place the payload on a trans-lunar trajectory. The fifth stage was used for deep space manoeuvres and was identical to the upper stage previously flown with the Proton SL-12 rocket. These fourth and fifth stages were later replaced by a single oxygen-hydrogen stage.
Zond 9
The payload for the first Groza launch was Zond 9. Despite sharing a designation with the earlier unmanned circumlunar spacecraft, it is clear that Zond 9 was a new design much larger than the previous probes in the series. After completing two orbits of the Earth, Zond 9 was placed onto a lunar trajectory by the Groza fourth stage, which was then observed to separate from the payload. A course correction manoeuvre was applied on 15 June at a distance of 320 thousand km from Earth. It was widely expected that Zond 9 would enter lunar orbit, but no further manoeuvres were performed and the craft passed behind the Moon on 16 June at a minimum distance of 2,800km. Radio telemetry continued to be received from the probe until 22 June, after which all contact was lost. The Soviets made the following official announcement regarding the mission:
“In accordance with the space research programme, automated probe Zond 9 has successfully completed its mission and has entered a solar orbit as an artificial planet. According to telemetric data, all the systems and assemblies on board and the scientific equipment functioned as designed. Scientists are analysing the results, which will further our understanding of the Moon and deep space.”
Official Soviet sources have provided few details of this “Heavy Zond”, but many Western observers believe this was an unmanned test of hardware for a lunar landing system for cosmonauts.
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[1] This is all verbatim as identified in the OTL book. Apparently, even as late as 1987, Western civilian Soviet-watchers remained unaware of the N1-3L launch in February 1969.
[2] IOTL of course, N-1 never got a true name, and indeed was kept secret for years. Soviet practice was usually to name their rockets once they went operational, often taking the name from their first payload (e.g. Vostok, Molniya, Proton). Energia only got its name a few days before launch. ITTL, with a successful launch, the Soviet authorities want a name to put on the press releases, and this is it.
The name Groza (Гроза, pronounced “Grah-zah”) means “Thunderstorm”, fitting into an OTL trend of Soviet space vehicles being named for violent weather events, as well as being the name of a politically relevant play, which was popular with both the Communist Party and the public.
It also lets me reference Bradbury for my timeline’s title.
I considered using the name “Raskat”, which is the name of the N-1 launch complex and is usually translated as “peal of thunder”, but after consulting with a Russian friend I discovered that it’s also a term widely used for “steamroller”, which didn’t quite have the space-age feel I was looking for.
Brain-boxed tyrannosaurs pouring through the Fulda Gap? Call John Hammond. There cannot be a Dinosaur Gap! ...or a Dyna-Soar Gap, for that matter.Yes, ITTL the T-72 will be phased out by 1980 and the opening thrust into West Germany will be spearheaded by these things:
A working Block-D, a working Soyuz LOK, and a Dummy LK according to the N1-7L image, but did not enter LLO.
Leads me to believe in one of the following three possibilities:
Leads me to believe in one of the following three possibilities:
- Block-D failure during trans-Lunar coast phase. IIRC Block-D did fail on occasion so not implausible to me
- Lack of propellant reserve to complete the mission. The near-complete lack of reserve margin would suggest to me that any issue with the prior stages would leave the system unable to perform the full mission.
- It was the plan all along. Always a possibility, though losing all telemetry data after 10 days tells me that there's still bugs in the Soyuz LOK.
Damn I loved that book.
It was quite an amazing book, despite it's issues caused by lack of sources because of cold war era.
I did not know that, thanks!
I do hope you're not suggesting that the Soviet Union might be lying to the world about the success of its space missions! As a side note, the text of that announcement was adapted from the official launch announcements given IOTL for Zond 4 and 5, as reported by Clark.
I first came across this book around 1991 in my local library, and it was a real eye opener. "Glasnost" meant that there were already a lot more details available than a few years previously, but the N-1 and the L3 programme was still shrouded in mystery. I managed to pick up a second hand copy a few years ago, and it's fascinating to read now what they managed to get right (e.g. the basic L3 mission profile), and what they missed the mark with (e.g. N-1 using the Proton 2nd and 3rd stages as upper stages, rather than the real use of the N-1 Blok-D on Proton). It also has a fascinating speculation on a crewed Mars mission using Energia (which had launched the year before the book was published, while Buran went up shortly afterwards, and so isn't described in as great detail).
Incidentally, I also find it amusing reading today that, despite the cover text stating "The Soviet Manned Space Programme: An illustrated history of the men, the missions and the spacecraft", the cover photo actually shows a woman, Svetlana Savitskaya.
I would never allow a Dynasoar gap!
Regarding possibility 3), I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago
According to the new information I got last week, IOTL N1-7L was planned to launch into an eliptical Earth orbit, not aimed at the Moon. However, I decided not to change this ITTL as a) I figured butterflies could account for the difference, and b) I didn't want to do such an extensive re-write for a minor mission change. I might still go back and turn that dummy LK into a real one, as per OTL - but on the other hand, 7L launches earlier ITTL, so it could well be that a full-up LK is not yet ready.
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It's the Eighties, mind you. This means Dyna-Soar might just have reached its peak evolution: The suborbital bomber the USAF's had blue balls over for half-a-century now.
And given how the USAF tends to do with its space-faring projects, it probably still doesn't work as intended.
Didn't it also have some absolutely batty multiple launch lunar orbital mission profile using some sorta Soyuz variant and fuel tankers and stuff?
Yes, that was the Soyuz-A/B/V system, which was a real proposal from Korolev for a circumlunar mission. The Soyuz-B tug would be fueled by up to 4 Soyuz-V tankers and push a crewed Soyuz-A spacecraft around the moon, all launched by R7.
Post 3: Like a Diamond in the Sky
Post 3: Like a Diamond in the Sky
“I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future - I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
- Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander, December 13 1972, Taurus-Littrow Valley.
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As 1972 turned into 1973, the public focus of the space programmes of both Superpowers was shifting. The completion of the Apollo 17 mission signalled the end of America’s moon project, with attention switching to the upcoming launch of the Skylab space station and, beyond that, the development of a reusable Space Shuttle, turning space from an exotic location to explore into a place in which to live and work on a routine basis. Moreover, the signature the previous May of an agreement with the Soviets to conduct a joint mission in 1975 gave rise to hopes of a less confrontational future, in which both Superpowers could cooperate for the benefit of all humanity.
Publicly, the USSR embraced this position. After all, they had always been in favour of cooperation, and had refused to engage in the Moon Race, focussing instead on scientific robots and perfecting their crewed Soyuz spacecraft. It was the Americans who had seen competition where the Soviets had offered cooperation.
Behind the scenes, attitudes were somewhat different.
After eight years of development work, by the end of 1972 the first model of Vladimir Chelomei’s Almaz Orbital Piloted Station was finally nearing completion. OPS-1 consisted of two pressurised cylindrical sections, with propulsion systems, solar arrays and a docking port clustered at the rear of the larger cylinder. Along the belly of the two cylinders were arrayed apertures for a series of telescopes, including the giant Agat-1 photo-camera that filled much of the main compartment. These were all to be trained on the Earth’s surface, for Almaz was a military space station, conceived as a response to the USAF Manned Orbital Laboratory and sold to the Soviet military as a flexible and responsive reconnaissance platform.
Although this military function had until now kept the project cloaked in secrecy, by late 1972 there was a renewed political emphasis on using Almaz to claim another “first” for the USSR, by publicly beating Skylab to orbit with a crewed space station. To meet this objective not only would the station need to be ready, but so would a method of getting cosmonauts to Almaz. Chelomei’s original 1965 concept was to launch Almaz with a crew of three already onboard, in a VA return capsule attached to the front of the workshop. This idea had been scrapped by 1969, to be replaced by a separate Transport and Supply Ship (TKS), which combined the same VA design with a spacious Functional Cargo Block (FGB), providing crew facilities and consumables to support missions of several months. Unfortunately for Chelomei, TKS was running behind schedule, and was not expected to be available until the second half of the 1970s. In the meantime, Almaz would be forced to rely upon Mishin’s Soyuz for crew transfers.
To support Chelomei’s needs, Mishin had proposed a minimal upgrade of the 7K-OK design used for all Soyuz missions to date. He was planning a more extensive upgrade to support his own MKBS space station, but this was still many years in the future, and came well below N-1 and L3M on Mishin’s priority list. For Almaz, TsKBEM would simply update the Soyuz Habitation Module to include a docking probe with an internal transfer hatch compatible with Chelomei’s OPS design, but leave the rest of the ship more or less unchanged. Designated 7K-OKS[1], the upgraded Soyuz was the bare minimum needed to meet Chelomei’s requirements.
Mishin felt that the similarity with the earlier 7K-OK version meant that there was no need to waste effort and resources on a test flight programme for 7K-OKS, proposing instead to launch with a full crew on the very first mission to Almaz. Chelomei, unhappy with the marginal technical characteristics of the vehicle, disagreed, and succeeded in forcing a minimal test programme onto Mishin. This commenced with an uncrewed test flight in November 1971, under the designation Kosmos 456[2]. The mission at first appeared to have been fully successful, but upon landing it was discovered that a fault in the separation of the Habitation Module from the Descent Module had caused all of the separation charges to fire together instead of in sequence, and this had triggered a valve to open prematurely and depressurise the Descent Module before landing.[3] TsKBEM engineers made changes the the separation system to avoid such a problem in future, validating these with a second uncrewed test flight, Kosmos 490, in June 1972. This was followed in August by Soyuz 11, which launched cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Sevastiyanov on a five-day shakedown mission[4]. The mission was a complete success, and Soyuz 7K-OKS was declared ready for regular service.
The focus now returned to Chelomei and Almaz, with work preceding around the clock at the integration building in Baikonur over the winter 1972/73 to get the station ready for launch. Finally, on 7th January 1973, a Proton-K rocket lifted from pad LC-81/23 and carried space station Almaz/OPS-1 into an initial 208km by 240km orbit. Over the next few days, Almaz used its own propulsion system to raise its orbit to a 240km x 256km transfer orbit, in preparation for entering its final operational orbit at 260km altitude. Telemetry showed good functioning of all on-board systems, and TASS announced with a fanfare that the USSR had placed into orbit the world’s first long duration space station (the qualifier of “long duration” being used to distinguish it from the docked Soyuz 4/5 spacecraft of 1969, which TASS had already claimed to be the “the world's first experimental cosmic station”).
Preparations were well underway for the launch of cosmonauts Popovich, Artyukhin and Patsayev aboard Soyuz 12 to take command of the station, when suddenly things started to go wrong.
Twelve days after Almaz reached orbit, and just two days before the planned launch of Soyuz 12, mission controllers at the Saturn-MS complex at Yevpatoria re-established contact after one of the regular communication blackouts to discover that the station’s electrical power generation had mysteriously dropped by half. Telemetry also showed that the control system propellant tanks had lost some pressure, indicating that Almaz’s automatic orientation thrusters had been fired. Several other systems had tripped into safe modes following the drop in power, but analysis over the next day confirmed that otherwise the station was functional. Communications remained good when the station was over Soviet ground stations, but full power could not be restored.
Following some additional checks, controllers were able to command Almaz to fire its main engines, raising the station’s perigee enough to remove the risk of an early re-entry. With no other indications of trouble, it was decided to proceed with the Soyuz 12 mission at the next nominal launch slot. Dictated by the orbital plane of the station, the planned 25 day duration of the mission, and by a desire to ensure good lighting conditions at the recovery zone for Soyuz to land, this indicated a launch on 3rd March 1973. Unless the Americans pulled a surprise, this would still leave plenty of time for Soyuz 12 to reach Almaz before Skylab could be launched. There was no indication of problems with the Almaz’s docking mechanisms or Igla rendezvous system, so the crew should be able to board the station. Just to be safe, it was decided to introduce a hold on the automatic approach at 50m to allow the cosmonauts to visually inspect the station before completing the docking manoeuvre. With this modification to the flight plan agreed, the State Commission approved Soyuz 12 for launch.
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[1] There is some debate over the designation of this version of Soyuz, which IOTL only flew twice as Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11. Some sources show it as 7KT-OK. In “Rockets and People”, Chertok refers to these spacecraft as 7K-T No.31 and 32, with GRAU index 11F615A8, but this clashes with other sources that use 7K-T for the later, 2-person Soyuz ferry, which usually flew with no solar panels.
For my purposes, I have therefore just stuck with 7K-OKS, for no better reason than it’s the one used in the title of the Wikipedia page.
[2] With no rush to meet the needs of Salyut-1, development of 7K-OKS is slower than IOTL, but probably consumes an equivalent number of engineer-hours due to the lower priority Mishin places on it - hey, it’s not his mission on the line!
[3] This is, of course, exactly the failure that led to the Soyuz 11 tragedy IOTL. Here it’s picked up on an uncrewed test, but the far lower profile of the failure (no-one in the West even knows it occurred) means that less effort is put into fixing the many, many issues with 7K-OKS, and a “band-aid” solution is applied instead.
[4] This is a small change from the OTL crew of Soyuz 11, with Vitali Sevastiyanov replacing Viktor Patsayev ITTL. This is due to the changed nature of the mission as a brief test flight rather than a lengthy space station mission, and so the Research Engineer role is swapped out for a second Flight Engineer. IOTL, Sevastiyanov was on the Soyuz 11 backup crew. The original prime crew for Soyuz 11 IOTL was commanded by Alexei Leonov, but ITTL he has just completed a high profile mission on Soyuz 9/10, and so is out of rotation.
So if I read this update right, Soyuz ITTL will continue to fly with the crew not wearing Pressure Suits owing to the lack of a very Public Loss-Of-Crew Event?
Am wondering as to the state of Almaz here, sounds like something's off. But is it a fixable issue or not? That is the question.
TKS eh? That would be nice to see. ^_^
So US is committed to STS ITTL as well. That should make for some interesting times in the late-70's/early-80's.
Am wondering as to the state of Almaz here, sounds like something's off. But is it a fixable issue or not? That is the question.
TKS eh? That would be nice to see. ^_^
So US is committed to STS ITTL as well. That should make for some interesting times in the late-70's/early-80's.
Something tells me that a preventable accident is still going to occur. Doesn't look like they're making the switch to wearing pressure suits yet, perhaps they'll risk it for Soyuz 12 then switch to two-person crews with pressure suits for Soyuz 13.