USSR projects. space fighter "spiral". Spiral (aerospace system) Orbital plane spiral

It is assumed that the Dream Chaser ("Runner for a dream") will deliver cargo and a crew of up to 7 people to low-earth orbit.

Dream Chaser is being built under a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the ISS. The first flight to the orbital station is scheduled for 2020.

Star Wars at the dawn of the space age

Perhaps this project would not have aroused interest in Russia, if not for one important circumstance: the appearance, as well as a number of technical solutions used in the construction of Dream Chaser, repeat the Soviet project of a reusable spacecraft, which was developed half a century ago.

We are talking about the Spiral project, which became the forerunner of the much more famous Buran. But the purpose of the "Spiral" was by no means peaceful: this ship was supposed to become a part of not fictional, but real "Star Wars".

Three weeks after the first artificial Earth satellite entered orbit, the United States began to prepare a response. It was not about the launch of its "artificial moon", but about the creation of a combat spacecraft.

The X-20 Dyna-Soar was conceived as a space interceptor reconnaissance bomber. In addition to conducting reconnaissance, he was supposed to destroy enemy satellites and, making "dives" into the atmosphere, to bomb targets on Earth. Of course, it was about nuclear bombing.

Orbital impact

When it became known in the USSR what the Americans were working on, the country's leadership set the task of creating a similar combat spacecraft.

This is how a project called "Spiral" was born. The spacecraft was to be launched into orbit using a hypersonic booster aircraft and a rocket stage. The landing was scheduled as a conventional aircraft.

After the formation of the general concept in the Central Research Institute of 30 Air Force, the task was transferred to the design bureau OKB-155 Artem Mikoyan... Project manager "Spiral" was appointed Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.

The military wanted to get a spacecraft that would solve several problems at once. Therefore, the developers envisaged several modifications of the spacecraft at once: reconnaissance aircraft, interceptor, space bomber.

The latter role deserves special mention. The Soviet spacecraft was being prepared for attacks on potential enemy aircraft carrier groups. Armed with a space-to-ground missile with a nuclear warhead, the spacecraft was supposed to attack the target at the very first orbit. Even the deviation of the rocket from the target by 200 meters ensured the guaranteed destruction of the enemy aircraft carrier.

The creators of "Spiral" were preparing for the battle of spacecraft in orbit. In addition to weapons, a unique capsule was developed for the Soviet spacecraft, in which the crew was supposed to escape if the ship was hit by the enemy.

Ingenious "Lapot"

The Spiral project was developed in an environment where computer technology was far from perfect. Therefore, many of the solutions that are entrusted to computers today had to be looked for in other areas.

Overcoming the dense layers of the atmosphere during the descent was a huge problem. Critical areas were protected with the help of special thermal protection, which was later improved during the creation of "Buran".

But that was not enough. In the 1960s, it was almost impossible to control the descent so that the incoming air flow only touched the areas protected by thermal protection. And then Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky proposed to equip "Spiral" with folding wing consoles.

The self-balancing system worked like this: at the moment when the speed reached its maximum during the descent from orbit, the delta wing consoles automatically folded, "substituting" the protected nose and bottom for impact.

The fuselage of the spacecraft was made according to the scheme of the carrying body with a very blunt, feathered triangular shape in plan.

One of the creators, looking at their brainchild, suddenly said: "This is bast shoe!" And so it happened: the combat spacecraft its developers fondly called "Laptem" or "Space Bast".

Titov's team: who was supposed to pilot space attack aircraft

While the designers were developing the spacecraft, their future pilots began to train. In 1966, a group was formed at the Cosmonaut Training Center that worked on the "Spiral theme". The most famous participant was the Soviet cosmonaut number two German Titov... The group also included future astronauts Vasily Lazarev and Anatoly Filipchenko.

The work on the spacecraft was difficult. And it's not just the complexity of the task at hand. At the same time, several space programs were being implemented in the USSR at once, and the Spiral project was at the tail end of the line for funding. Perhaps this happened because intelligence reported: the American project to create a combat orbital ship is stalled and is close to failure. In addition, OKB-1, which after death Sergei Korolev headed Vasily Mishin, they were extremely jealous of their competitors, convincing the Soviet leadership of the senselessness of the very idea of ​​an orbital plane.

In 1969, the Cosmonaut Training Center underwent a reorganization, and young people joined the group of pilots working on the Spiral theme: Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Dzhanibekov,Yuri Romanenko, Vladimir Lyakhov... All of them will visit space, but they will not become Spiral pilots.

How Spiral was changed to Buran

Since 1969, within the framework of the project, launches of suborbital analogous vehicles BOR (Unmanned orbital rocket plane) began. Three modifications of the BOR apparatus were models on a scale of 1: 3. There were seven launches, of which two were completely successful.

In 1973, the department of the cosmonaut corps, which worked on the Spiral project, was disbanded due to the closure of the project.

The paradox, however, lies in the fact that at this time in government circles the question of the need to create a reusable space system in the USSR was already discussed.

In 1976 USSR Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov approved the tactical and technical specifications for the development of such a system. And the necessity was explained by the fact that even earlier such work had been started ... in the USA. A decade later, the situation repeated itself exactly, only now the Energia-Buran program was to become a response to the Space Shuttle program.

For work on the project, a research and production association "Molniya" was created, the head of which was ... Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky.

"Spiral" was considered a morally outdated project that did not meet the latest requirements of the time.

Experts, however, believe that many of the solutions used in the Spiral were much more successful than those used later by both the Americans and our designers when creating the Buran system.

The Spiral prototype has been in space, more than once. In 1979, the BOR-4 apparatus was created, which was an overall and weight model of the "Spiral" on a scale of 1: 2.

In 1982-1984 BOR-4 made four orbital flights. For printing, the launches of the device were encrypted under the names of satellites of the Cosmos series.

After one of the flights, BOR-4 splashed down in the Indian Ocean, where it was awaited not only by Soviet warships, but also by representatives of the Australian Navy, who took a huge number of photographs of the Soviet apparatus. The images were transferred to the CIA, from where they migrated to NASA.

After analyzing, American engineers were delighted: they recognized the constructive solutions of their Russian colleagues as ingenious. So much so that at first they were actually copied in the HL-20 orbital aircraft project, which was not implemented in the nineties, and now migrated to the Dream Chaser.

You shouldn't be offended by the Yankees. What we didn't need, they use with success. We can only bite our elbows and regret missed opportunities.

The likely enemy began the creation of the Star Wars system. It surrounds the USSR with a chain of space stations with reconnaissance equipment and laser cannons to destroy Soviet ballistic missiles.

SEE ALL PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY The union strikes back. From the airfields, hypersonic aircraft are launched, on which a small space fighter with a characteristic nose shape resembling the nose of a Russian bast shoe is attached.


Hypersonic carriers gain an altitude of 20 kilometers and, having reached a speed of 6 speeds of sound, I release fighters. Space fighters quickly reach an altitude of four hundred kilometers. Soon the Star Wars stations will appear in the sights of the astronauts. Non-inertial 23 millimeter cannons are advanced from the compartments of the fighters, one shot and the station are scattered into fragments. Having destroyed several enemy combat stations, the fighters enter the descent spiral and go to land.


The combat mission is completed - the enemy Star Wars system is completely destroyed in 80 minutes.
This is not science fiction. This is a scenario for the use of a combat orbital system, which the USSR began to develop in the mid-60s under the code name "Spiral".


The orbital aircraft system received the name "Spiral" for the characteristic descent of an orbital fighter to the ground, which was carried out in a ballistic spiral.
A design bureau headed by designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky worked on the Spiral project.
Within the framework of the projects, the MiG 105.11 atmospheric test apparatus was created to study the aerodynamic scheme.
A detachment of space pilots was also organized for flights on the "Spiral" spacecraft.
An orbital fighter armed with a cannon was planned as a combat striking element. In space, one direct hit from a cannon projectile is enough to destroy any spacecraft. Such a gun was created and tested at one of the Salyut space stations.
The model of the orbital fighter MiG 105.11 had a specific shape of the nose, which received the nickname "Space Bast".


As part of the Spiral program in the mid-late 1970s, atmospheric flights were carried out on the MiG 105.11.
In the 1980s, space experiments began with a prototype orbiter. For research, a space model of the BOR was created. To test the scheme, several launches were made. In all cases, the BOK model landed in the ocean - there were no landing devices and an automatic landing system on these models.
"Space bast shoes" turned out to be extremely successful. Its scheme differed from both the Shuttle and Buran. The entry into the atmosphere and the descent were significantly safer than on the Shuttle and from the Buran.
"Space bast" was created as a combat vehicle, so it had a capsule to rescue the space pilot. In any situation, the pilot could descend on the device to an altitude of 60-50 kilometers and leave the device in the capsule. If such a system were installed on the American Shuttle, the crews of the dead Shuttles of the Challenger and Columbia would be saved.
The advantage of the "Spiral" system is its extremely fast reaction time and high stealthiness. A spacecraft is launched by a rocket in a few weeks. The launch vehicle and the spacecraft must be brought to the cosmodrome. Collect, check, deliver to the launch pad. The launch preparation time is several tens of hours. During this time, the enemy can easily destroy the missile during delivery to the launch site and preparation of the launch.
Fighters of the Spiral system could be launched from any significant airfield. The preparation and flight of the overclocking aircraft took not weeks, but only two hours.
"Space bast shoes" could quickly maneuver along the course and altitude and hit the elements of the enemy's orbital grouping.


The Spiral orbital system was destroyed by the Soviet Union itself. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee made a decision that it was necessary to create a Soviet analogue of the Shuttle - Energy - Buran. This system was considered more promising, had a dual purpose. It seemed to the Soviet leaders that the Spiral combat system was outdated. This was the wrong decision. Colossal funds were invested in the Energia-Buran system, and it made the only flight in automatic mode.

Alexander Zheleznyakov

PROJECT "SPIRAL"

The idea of ​​creating an apparatus capable of flying both in the atmosphere and in outer space was put forward by one of the pioneers of cosmonautics, our compatriot Friedrich Arturovich Zander in the first half of the twentieth century. In his article “Description of the interplanetary spacecraft of the F.A. Zander ”, published in 1924, he proposed using winged vehicles for space flights and showed the advantage of wings over parachute systems when returning to Earth.
But the path from the idea to its implementation was not close. And although work on the creation of aerospace systems (AKS) has already been underway for a long time, they still do not exist and, apparently, they will not appear in the foreseeable future.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, the creation of the AKS turned out to be quite difficult technically. The problems that the pioneers saw, and which were supposed to be solved in a few years, were only the tip of the iceberg. Even today's technologies do not allow the creation of such an apparatus that would erase the border between the atmosphere and outer space.
Secondly, the creation of the AKS turned out to be quite expensive, and even with a long payback period. That is why not every state is capable of building a spaceplane, not to mention private business, which does not see an attractive project in aerospace systems.
Thirdly, there are no projects where ACS could be used. Moreover, this statement is true for both peaceful and military space.
All this makes us talk about aerospace systems as promising developments of tomorrow.
At the same time, work on the AKC has been going on for almost half a century. The first to tackle them were the Americans, who in the 1950s formulated the concept of the Dyna Sor system, designed to combine the advantages of aviation and space systems. At the same time, the United States began the implementation of a test program for the X-15 missile aircraft, which many consider as a prototype of the vehicles of the future.
In our country, AKS projects began to actively develop after the first publications about American developments appeared, which in Soviet military circles were considered as offensive strategic systems. It is quite natural that an adequate response to the threat from the “potential adversary” was required, and the Soviet Union began to actively study the issue of the possibility of creating an orbital aircraft. First of all, it was considered from the point of view of military applications. For example, as a satellite fighter.
Aviators were the first to take up aerospace systems, for whom it was more convenient to create machines capable of flying in the atmosphere. The development of the "space component" was supposed to be dealt with a little later and with the involvement of rocket scientists.
Of the projects of that time, it is worth noting VKA-23 (OKB-23 aerospace vehicle), the creation of which began in 1958 under the leadership of the famous Soviet aircraft designer V.M. Myasishchev Design Bureau (KB). Already next year, “Topic 48” appeared in the work plan of the bureau, as the documents indicated the creation of this apparatus.
According to V.M. Myasishchev, it was supposed to be a small aircraft of the "flying wing" type. The total weight of the device was to be 4.4 tons, the flight altitude was up to 400 km. It was supposed to be launched from the M-50 booster aircraft. By March 1960, several variants of the rocket plane had been calculated in detail.
However, in the fall of the same year, the defeat of the aviation industry began. The leadership of the party and the state considered that in the presence of rapidly developing rocket technology, there was no point in spending money on the creation of aircraft that could not solve the problem of nuclear parity with the United States. Among those enterprises that were supposed to be closed, there was also OKB-23. Topic 48 was closed, and the chief designer was sent to direct the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI).
Almost at the same time when the development of VKA-23 began, similar work was carried out at OKB-256, which was headed by P.V. Tsybin. This work was initiated by the chief designer of rocket and space systems S.P. Korolyov, puzzled at that moment by the preparations for the flight into space of the first cosmonaut. Since the flight procedure had not yet been approved, various options for its implementation were considered. One of them was the project of the planning spacecraft (PLA), proposed by Tsybin.
A submarine with an astronaut on board was to be launched into an orbit with an altitude of 300 km using a modified R-7 rocket (in the future, the legendary Vostok launch vehicle). After an orbital flight lasting about a day, the device was supposed to return to Earth, gliding in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Despite the fact that the Tsybinsk development was supported by Korolev, at the end of 1960, OKB-256, as well as OKB-23, was closed, and the chief designer was transferred to another job. True, Tsybin was lucky. He went to work at OKB-1 as Korolev's deputy. But the materials of the PLA project went into the archive to wait in the wings.
In 1960, V.N. Chelomey. Using his connections at the top (the son of NS Khrushchev worked at that time with Chelomey), he achieved the adoption of the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 715-295 of June 23, 1960, in which OKB-52 was ordered to develop manned space rocket plane for military purposes (object “R”). In the early 1960s, such work was carried out and reached the stage of flight tests of prototypes in an unmanned version.
But this continued until October 1964, when N.S. Khrushchev was removed from the posts of first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. Following the removal of the Soviet leader, all those to whom he favored fell into disgrace. With the end of the “era of Khrushchev,” the “era of Chelomey” also ended, especially since as a result of displacements in the top party and state leadership, his opponent, D.F. Ustinov, who became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers. A few days after the removal of Khrushchev, on October 17, a commission was created to “investigate the activities of OKB-52”. And two days later, all the materials on rocket planes were transferred from OKB-52 to OKB-155, which was headed by A.I. Mikoyan.
It should be noted that two design bureaus fought for the “possession” of Chelomeev's materials: Mikoyan and P.O. Sukhoi. Both design bureaus proposed similar aerospace systems, and Sukhoi, in addition, had a project for a T-4 heavy bomber, which was supposed to be used as a carrier. But in the end, the competition ended in Mikoyan's favor. In principle, it could not be otherwise, if we remember that Mikoyan's brother at that time was the head of the Soviet state.
The "Spiral" theme was started at the Mikoyan Design Bureau as a continuation of the earlier studies of combined aerospace systems (project "50-50"). The main goal of the program was to create a manned orbital aircraft to perform applied tasks in space and to ensure regular transportation along the "Earth-orbit-Earth" route. It was also supposed to conduct an inspection of the vehicles in orbit, as well as the placement of various weapons systems on board the aircraft, ranging from traditional (guns and missiles) to promising (laser, beam weapons, etc.). Deputy Chief Designer G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky. A year and a half later, on June 29, 1966, he signed the prepared draft.
For the detailed design of the orbital ship in 1967, a branch of the Mikoyan Design Bureau was created in Dubna near Moscow, headed by Deputy Chief Designer P.A. Schuster. Yu.D. Blokhin, who later became Deputy Chief Designer of NPO Molniya, and his deputy for production - D.A. Reshetnikov, later Deputy General Director of the experimental plant NPO Molniya.
AKS "Spiral" with a total mass of 115 tons was supposed to include a reusable hypersonic booster aircraft (GSR) and a reusable orbital aircraft (OS) with a disposable 2-stage rocket booster. After the completion of the orbital flight, a gliding descent was envisaged.
Two versions of the GSR were considered with four multi-mode turbojet engines running on liquid hydrogen (a promising option) or kerosene (a conservative option). The launch (separation) of the orbital stage was supposed to be carried out at altitudes of 28-30 km or 22-24 km, respectively, at a speed six times (first variant) or four times (second variant) exceeding the speed of sound. Further, the accelerator with a liquid propellant rocket engine (LPRE) entered into action, and the GSR returned to the launch site.
The booster aircraft was supposed to be a large tailless aircraft 38 m long with a large sweep wing with a span of 16.5 m. The engine block was located under the fuselage and had a common adjustable supersonic air intake. In the upper part of the fuselage of the GSR on the pylon, it was supposed to mount the OS, the nose and tail of which was closed with fairings.
The orbital aircraft weighing about 10 tons was designed according to the "load-bearing body" of a triangular shape and was much smaller than the booster aircraft. It had swept wing consoles, which, when launched and at the initial stage of descent from orbit, occupied a vertical position, and when gliding turned, increasing the area of ​​the bearing surface. The OS was supposed to be injected into a low-earth orbit with an altitude of about 130 km and perform 2-3 orbits along it. It was assumed that he would be able to maneuver in altitude and in changing the inclination of the orbit. For maneuvering in orbit, it was planned to equip the device with one main and two emergency liquid-propellant rocket engines. After completing the flight program, the OS had to re-enter the atmosphere, descend at hypersonic speed at a high angle of attack, and then, after reducing the speed, open the wing, plan and land at any, not specially equipped, airfield.
One of the distinctive features of the projected device was the presence on board of an electronic computer for navigation and automatic flight control.
The possibility of emergency rescue of the OS pilot at any stage of the flight using a headlamp-shaped capsule cockpit with an ejection mechanism from the OS, a parachute and brake engines for entering the atmosphere and a navigation block was considered.
The main feature of the "Spiral" system was a large relative mass of the payload, which was 2-3 times higher than those for disposable carriers. The cost of launching was supposed to be 3-3.5 times lower. The advantage of the system was the possibility of a wide choice of launch directions, maneuvering in orbit and aircraft landing in any weather conditions.
The Spiral project provided for a wide range of works.
For full-scale testing of the structure and main OS systems, a single-seat experimental reusable orbital aircraft was designed. It was built in the same way as the main vehicle, but had a smaller size and mass, and had to be launched into orbit using the Soyuz carrier rocket.
According to the plan, the creation of a subsonic analogue aircraft began in 1967, a hypersonic analogue - in 1968.The first unmanned orbital flight was planned to be performed in 1970, and the first manned flight - in 1977.The design of the GSR was to begin in 1970. if a decision was made to create a hydrogen booster aircraft, its construction would have to begin in 1972.
In parallel with the design of the "Spiral" system, training began for pilots of an orbital aircraft. In 1967, a group was formed in the detachment of Soviet cosmonauts, which at the first stage included G.S. Titov, A.V. Filipchenko and A.P. Kuklin.
As you can see, the plans were quite ambitious. Alas, they were not destined to come true. The main reason for this was the closure of the Daina Sor theme in the United States and, as a result, the loss of interest from the Soviet military in the Spiral. In addition, many Soviet projects were closed due to the lack of influential patrons in the top leadership of the party and the country. So it happened with the "Spiral". Her “evil geniuses” were the USSR Defense Minister A.A. Grechko and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR D.F. Ustinov, who did everything to prevent the transformation of a paper project into a real machine. Grechko is even credited with the words about "Spiral": "We are not engaged in science fiction!" True, the same phrase is put into the mouth of the then Minister of Defense and in relation to other closed space projects, so there is no certainty that he actually said it. And if it did sound, then it is not known in relation to what.
Work on the "Spiral" topic began to curtail in the early 1970s. First, they abandoned the creation of an accelerator aircraft, and then an orbital aircraft. Even earlier, a group of cosmonauts was disbanded.
In the plans of the enterprises involved in this topic, there is only the creation of flying models for studying the characteristics of stability and controllability of the OS in various flight sections and assessing thermal protection. These models were named "unmanned orbital rocket planes" (BOR).
An extensive test program included blowing them in the wind tunnels of TsAGI, which was connected to work back in 1966, bench testing, simulating various modes and stages of flight, as well as throw tests, when vehicles were launched onto ballistic trajectories using missiles.
It was also created for flight tests of the airframe structure at subsonic speeds - the MiG-105.11. Some sources also use the names EPOS (Experimental Passenger Orbital Plane) and Lapot. The MiG-105.11 was a single-seat vehicle 8.5 m long, with a wingspan of 6.4 m and a mass of 4220 kg. The plane was equipped with an RD-36-35K turbojet engine.
Flight tests of the manned analogue aircraft began in May 1976: with the help of its own engine, the device took off from the airfield and soon after that went to land. More than a dozen flights took place, in which test pilots A.G. Fastovets, I.P. Wolf, V.E. Menitsky and A.V. Fedotov. The first flight from one strip of the airfield to another was made on October 11, 1976 in the Moscow region. The device took off, gained an altitude of 560 meters and, having flown 19 kilometers, landed.
In 1977, tests began with its rise to a height on board the Tu-95K carrier aircraft. At first, this was done without separation from the carrier, and on October 27, 1977, an air launch took place for the first time. A.G. was at the helm that day. Fastovets. In total, Lapot made nine flights. One of them, held in September 1978, was an emergency landing. Fortunately, everything turned out to be only cracks in some parts of the case.
The end of the tests of the analogue aircraft can be considered the actual end of the Spiral project. After that, the efforts of the designers were focused on the "Energia" - "Buran" program. Everything that was created by that time, it was decided to use, but in relation to the new development. The BOR models were equipped with a new thermal protection system similar in thermal protection characteristics to the Buran spacecraft. Due to the extremely small dimensions compared to the real ship, the models were extremely simplified in terms of equipment.
"BOR-4" was an unmanned experimental device, which is a reduced copy of the manned OS, developed earlier under the "Spiral" program, and was made according to the aerodynamic configuration "load-bearing body." It had the following characteristics: length 3.4 m, wingspan 2 , 6 m and a mass of 1074 kg in orbit and 795 kg after return.
In the period from 1982 to 1984, six launches of this apparatus were made from the Kapustin Yar test site using Kosmos carrier rockets. In those cases when BOR-4 went into near-earth orbit, they received the names of satellites of the Kosmos series.
The first launch took place on June 3, 1982. Having completed one orbit around the Earth, the device, which received the official name Kosmos-1374, splashed down in the Indian Ocean south of the Cocos Islands and was picked up by Soviet ships in that area.
A similar flight took place on March 15, 1983 and also with a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. In the published TASS report, the spacecraft launched into space was named "Cosmos-1445", but no details of the flight were given.
In both cases, operations to search for and retrieve the landed vehicles on board Soviet ships took place under the close scrutiny of Australian reconnaissance aircraft. The photographs published then in the newspapers gave reason to many experts to assume that the Soviet Union is preparing to launch a manned mini-shuttle.
The next test flight was the launch on December 27, 1983 of the Kosmos-1517 satellite. Unlike the two previous flights, this unit splashed down in the Black Sea to the west of Sevastopol and sank.
A year later, the last BOR-4 orbital flight took place. Launched on December 19, 1984, the apparatus under the open name "Cosmos-1616" successfully circled the Earth and splashed down in the Black Sea.
Two more BOR-4s were launched along a suborbital trajectory (July 4, 1984 and October 20, 1987). The maximum altitude reached by the vehicles was 130 km.
Aerodynamic model "BOR-5", geometrically similar to the future spacecraft "Buran", was made on a scale of 1: 8 and has a mass of about 1.4 tons. Its launches were carried out along a suborbital trajectory from the Kapustin Yar test site using Kosmos launch vehicles. After lifting the vehicle along a suborbital trajectory to an altitude of about 120 km, the upper stage of the carrier oriented and accelerated BOR-5 with an additional impulse to ensure the required conditions for entering the atmosphere (the velocity of entering the atmosphere at an altitude of 100 km from 7300 to 4000 m / s), after which the apparatus was separated.
The launches were carried out in the period from 1983 to 1988.The first launch (July 4, 1983) was unsuccessful due to the launch vehicle accident, and five subsequent ones (June 6, 1984, April 17, 1985, December 25, 1986). , August 27, 1987; June 22, 1988) - successful.
In principle, this is where the story about the Spirals project can end. The first and only flight of the Buran is a different story, only distantly related to the aerospace systems of the 1960s. But the work invested in the Spiral project was not in vain. In addition to the already mentioned test flights of the BOR-4 and BOR-5 vehicles, a material base, test methods were created, and highly qualified specialists were trained. All this greatly contributed to the success in the creation of the Energia - Buran system.
Talking about the Spiral project, one cannot ignore the present day. Work on promising AKC continues, but due to the lack of government funding, things are going hard. True, there is hope that their fate will be happier than that of their predecessors. But we will be able to find out about this years later.

Sources of information:

Aerospace system "Spiral": details // on the site "Spaceship" Buran "(http://www.buran.ru).
- Aerospace systems. Collection of articles edited by G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky and A.G. Bratukhin. - M .: Publishing house MAI, 1997.
- Afanasyev I.B. Unknown ships. - M .: "Knowledge", 1991.
- Zheleznyakov A.B. Project "Spiral" // on the site "Encyclopedia" Cosmonautics "(http://www.cosmoworld.ru/spaceencyclopedia/).
- History and aircraft of the MiG Design Bureau / Wings of Russia LLC, ANPK MiG, 1999, CD-ROM.
- Lazutchenko O., Borisov A. 30 years of the failed flight. // in magazine “News of Cosmonautics”, No. 10, 2003.
- Larionov Yu. “Bora” over the planet // in magazine “Novosti kosmonavtiki”, no. 7, 2000.
- Lebedev V. Project "Spiral". Materials of the XI International Symposium on the History of Aviation and Cosmonautics - M., St. Petersburg, 2001.
- Flight experiments under the "Cosmos" program, carried out to ensure the creation of the "Buran" spacecraft. Report by G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky, L.P. Voinov and V.A. Skorodeeva - IIET RAS, March 30, 1992
- Menitsky V. My heavenly life. - M., 1999.
- "Spiral" - aerospace system // on the site "Spacecraft" Buran "(

(Moscow region).

History of the program

Around 1964, a group of scientists and Air Force specialists developed a concept for creating a fundamentally new VKS, which most rationally integrated the ideas of an airplane, a rocket plane and a space object and would satisfy the above requirements. In the middle of 1965, the Minister of Aviation Industry P. V. Dementyev instructed the A. I. Mikoyan Design Bureau to develop a project for this system, which was named "Spiral". G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky was appointed the chief designer of the system. From the Air Force, the work was supervised by S.G. Frolov, military-technical support was entrusted to the head of the Central Research Institute of 30 - Z.A. Ioffe, as well as his deputy for science V.I. Rukosuev - the main ideologists of the VKS concept. ...

In the course of the program, to test the creation of an orbital aircraft and demonstrate its feasibility, subprojects of an analogue aircraft MiG-105.11, suborbital analogue vehicles BOR-1 (Unmanned orbital rocket plane), BOR-2, BOR-3 and spacecraft analogous "EPOS" were created (Experimental manned orbital aircraft) BOR-4 and BOR-5.

All vehicles were made on a scale of 1: 3 due to the limited energy capabilities of the 8K63B launch vehicle - a modified R-12 MRBM. The launches were carried out from the Kapustin Yar test site:

BOR-1 - 07/15/1969, a mock-up product made of textolite, burned out during ballistic descent;
BOR-2 - 06.12.1969, control system failure, ballistic descent, burned out;
BOR-2 - 07/31/1970, successful flight;
BOR-2 - 04/22/1971, burnout of thermal protection, the parachute did not come out, crashed;
BOR-2 - 02/08/1972, successful flight, the device is stored in the LII;
BOR-3 - 05.24.1973, destruction at an altitude of 5 km, crashed;
BOR-3 - 07/11/1974, damage to the parachute, crashed.

Work on the creation of "Spiral", including analogues of its orbital aircraft, interrupted in 1969, were resumed in 1974. In 1976-1978, LII carried out 7 test flights of the MiG-105.11.

Pilots Pyotr Ostapenko, Igor Volk, Valery Menitsky, Alexander Fedotov carried out tests on the subsonic analogue of the Mig-105.11 orbital aircraft. The MiG-105.11 was launched from under the fuselage of a Tu-95 K heavy bomber Aviard Fastovets, the final stage of testing the analogue was conducted by Vasily Uryadov.

Same " on the basis of BOR-4, space-based maneuvering warheads were developed, the main task of which was to bomb America from space with a minimum flight time to targets (5 ... 7 minutes)". VP Lukashevich, Financial Director of the International Consortium Multipurpose Aerospace Systems.

Own work on the Spiral (except for the BOR analogs) was finally stopped after the start of development of a larger, less technologically risky, seemingly more promising and in many ways similar to the American Space Shuttle program of the Energia-Buran project. Defense Minister A. A. Grechko did not even give permission for orbital tests of the almost finished EPOS, having drawn according to various sources a resolution “We will not be engaged in fantasies” or “This is fantastic. You have to do the real thing. " The main specialists who had previously worked on the Spiral project were transferred from the AI ​​Mikoyan Design Bureau and the Raduga Design Bureau by order of the Minister of Aviation Industry to the Molniya Scientific and Production Association.

At this time, an analogue plane 105.11 can be seen in the Central Museum of the Air Force of the Russian Federation in Monino.

Booster plane

A powerful airship-booster (weight 52 tons, length 38 m, wingspan 16.5 m) was to accelerate to six times the speed of sound (6), then a 10-ton a manned orbital aircraft with a length of 8 m and a span of 7.4 m.

« The accelerator aircraft up to Mach 6 was supposed to be possible to use as a passenger airliner, which, of course, was rational: its high speed characteristics would make it possible to increase the speed of civil aviation».

The booster airplane was the first technologically revolutionary detailed design of a hypersonic jet powered aircraft. At the 40th Congress of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), held in 1989 in Malaga, Spain, representatives of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) praised the booster aircraft, noting that it was “designed in accordance with modern requirements ".

In view of the requirement of large funds for fundamentally new propulsion, aerodynamic and materials science technologies to create such a hypersonic aircraft-accelerator, in the latest versions of the project, a less expensive and more quickly achievable possibility of creating not a hypersonic, but a supersonic accelerator was considered, which was considered a modified strike-reconnaissance aircraft T-4 ("100"), but it was not implemented either.

Orbital plane

The closure of the Spiral program was influenced by the beginning of the creation of the Buran program as a response to the start of the American Space Shuttle program, as well as the closure of the PILOT program in 1975.

According to NASA employees, on the organization's website, the design of Bora-4 could have been influenced by data on the creation and testing of manned vehicles M2-F1, M2-F2, HL-10, X-24A, X-24B purchased by the Soviet Union. [ ]

Impact of the project on US programs

Domestic experts, such as Alexei Leonkov, insist that the X-37B orbital aircraft was copied from the Soviet BOR-5, the Dream Chaser orbital aircraft, a copy of the EPOS aircraft created according to the Spiral project, Stratolaunch, the twin of the Lightning-1000.

HL-20, whose project formed the basis of the Dream Chaser spacecraft, was created, inter alia, on the basis of images of Soviet experimental vehicles of the BOR-4 series launched under the Energia-Buran program: Kosmos-1374 in June 1982 and Kosmos-1445 in March 1983, which was a modification of the devices created according to the Spiral program, which was implemented since the beginning of the 60s. Received as a result of CIA espionage and transferred to NASA, where they made and tested the models in a wind tunnel, using the experience gained. But thanks to Mark Sirangelo, who visited Russia and met with domestic engineers, the names of Russian specialists will fly on the first flight aboard the Dream Chaser spacecraft together with American specialists who worked on the HL-20 project.

A chain of space stations with reconnaissance equipment and laser cannons to destroy Soviet ballistic missiles.

The USSR did not wait for the enemy to build the noose of orbital stations. The union strikes back. From the airfields, hypersonic aircraft are launched, on which a small space fighter with a characteristic nose shape resembling the nose of a Russian bast shoe is attached.

Hypersonic carriers gain an altitude of 20 kilometers and, having reached a speed of 6 speeds of sound, I release fighters. Space fighters quickly reach an altitude of four hundred kilometers. Soon the Star Wars stations will appear in the sights of the astronauts. Non-inertial 23 millimeter cannons are advanced from the compartments of the fighters, one shot and the station are scattered into fragments. Having destroyed several enemy combat stations, the fighters enter the descent spiral and go to land.

The combat mission is completed - the enemy Star Wars system is completely destroyed in 80 minutes.

This is not science fiction. This is a scenario for the use of a combat orbital system, which the USSR began to develop in the mid-60s under the code name "Spiral".

The orbital aircraft system received the name "Spiral" for the characteristic descent of an orbital fighter to the ground, which was carried out in a ballistic spiral.

A design bureau headed by designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky worked on the Spiral project.

Within the framework of the projects, the MiG 105.11 atmospheric test apparatus was created to study the aerodynamic scheme.

A detachment of space pilots was also organized for flights on the "Spiral" spacecraft.

An orbital fighter armed with a cannon was planned as a combat striking element. In space, one direct hit from a cannon projectile is enough to destroy any spacecraft. Such a gun was created and tested at one of the Salyut space stations.

The model of the orbital fighter MiG 105.11 had a specific shape of the nose, which received the nickname "Space Bast".

As part of the Spiral program in the mid-late 1970s, atmospheric flights were carried out on the MiG 105.11.

In the 1980s, space experiments began with a prototype orbiter. For research, a space model of the BOR was created. To test the scheme, several launches were made. In all cases, the BOK model landed in the ocean - there were no landing devices and an automatic landing system on these models.

"Space bast shoes" turned out to be extremely successful. Its scheme differed from both the Shuttle and Buran. The entry into the atmosphere and the descent were significantly safer than on the Shuttle and from the Buran.

"Space bast" was created as a combat vehicle, so it had a capsule to rescue the space pilot. In any situation, the pilot could descend on the device to an altitude of 60-50 kilometers and leave the device in the capsule. If such a system were installed on the American Shuttle, the crews of the dead Shuttles of the Challenger and Columbia would be saved.

The advantage of the "Spiral" system is its extremely fast reaction time and high stealthiness. A spacecraft is launched by a rocket in a few weeks. The launch vehicle and the spacecraft must be brought to the cosmodrome. Collect, check, deliver to the launch pad. The launch preparation time is several tens of hours. During this time, the enemy can easily destroy the missile during delivery to the launch site and preparation of the launch.

Fighters of the Spiral system could be launched from any significant airfield. The preparation and flight of the overclocking aircraft took not weeks, but only two hours.

"Space bast shoes" could quickly maneuver along the course and altitude and hit the elements of the enemy's orbital grouping.

The Spiral orbital system was destroyed by the Soviet Union itself. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee made a decision that it was necessary to create a Soviet analogue of the Shuttle - Energy - Buran. This system was considered more promising, had a dual purpose. It seemed to the Soviet leaders that the Spiral combat system was outdated. This was the wrong decision. Colossal funds were invested in the Energia-Buran system, and it made the only flight in automatic mode.