April 1983:the Soviet shuttle program

The 1980's will be remembered as the era of the manned reusable winged spacecraft. As the first orbital test flight of the Shuttle Orbiter Columbia approached, the Soviets undertook a vigorous campaign against the craft as a military vehicle. The official Soviet news agency published charges that the Shuttle was part of the arms race into space. A comment from Moscow on 13 April 1981 said:

"People in the Pentagon are gleefully rubbing their hands. After all, more than two-thirds of the Shuttle flights are to be made in the Pentagon's interests. The ship's 30-ton carrying capacity will enable it to Rut around the Earth orbit spy satellites of a new generation, military laser stations and other military hardware. The Pentagon regards the Shuttle as a spacecraft intended for shooting down the enemy's artificial satellites or seizing and bringing them to the vehicle”

Typical of the attacks was a Soviet spokesman delivering a paper before the XIV Colloquim on International Law of Outer Space in which it was implied that Columbia's Remote Manipulator System would be used to retrieve space objects as a prelude to acts of orbital piracy. The attack included a denial by cosmonaut Alexei Yeliseyev at the Rome IAF Congress in September 1981 that the Soviets were planning a similar type of spacecraft.

Significantly, this debate occurred as the space age entered the third decade of manned space flight, with the Soviets having logged some 1,900 man-hours in space. In spite of the denials, the Soviet Union completed the first orbital test flight of the orbiter elemeht of the "Kosmolyot" in June last year. This confirmed the statement by Anatoli Y. Skripko, the Soviet science and technology attache in Washington, that the Soviet Union was developing a system "to considerably reduce the cost of delivery of materials into orbit." This craft is to serve as an integral part of advanced space station operations.

Cosmos 1374

Soviet space programme officials have indicated that they presently see no need for a shuttle type of craft, and that the Soyuz and Progress vehicles are adequate. Yuri Zaitsev, department chief of the Space Exploration Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, has said that the transporation "supply system for durable orbital stations, based on the relatively cheap manned spaceships Soyuz and automatic supply vehicles Progress, should be considered today most efficient and advisable ". These are highly significant comments since the Salyut 6 mission consumed 33 individual Soyuz and Progress spacecraft/booster configurations, in addition to the Cosmos 1267 "Star” module.

The unmanned Kosmoljot flight test. Cosmos 1374, was launched at about 9.30 p.m. GMT on 3 June 1982, and was recovered about 350 ml (560 km) south of the Cocos Islands after a flight of about 109 minutes. The 2,000 lb (900 kg) sub-scale model of the "Albatross" was placed in orbit by a C-1 booster from Kapustin Yar. Cosmos 1374 was the fourth flight to be directly associated with the development of the Kosmolyot. The Albatross test had been anticipated by several observers of the Soviet space programme ’.

On 17 March 1981 Robert S. Cooper, director of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), informed the Senate Subcommittee on Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces that Soviet space developments "certainly portend the advent of a new modular space station for the Soviets and move them along the way toward the goal of a large permanently manned space station." He added that the Soviets were "working on a manned space plane related to the current Salyut space station programme".

The deputy commander of the Soviet manned space flight training programme, Maj.-Gen. Alexei Leonov referred to Cosmos 1374 as an "experimental spacecraft." "The Soviet Union on Friday (3 June 1982) indeed launched an experimental spacecraft - the next one in the Cosmos series". The testing of the Albatross bears a marked similarity to the aerothermodynamic/aerothermoelastic structural systems enviroi mental test (ASSET) gliders flown atop Thor boosters in the early 1960's. The ASSET gliders with their 70° swept stub 14 ft (4.3 m) stub wings were nearly identical to the Dyna-Soar shuttle concept. The ASSET gliders were used to collect data on high-speed flutter phenomenon and aerodynamic control characteristics. They were half-conical in shape and approximately 78 in (2 m) long with a 54 in (1.4 m) span. Testing of the thermal protection of Albatross was certainly one of the prime objectives of Cosmos 1374.

Recovery of the Cosmos 1374 sub-scale craft would have been a high-priority, as evidenced by the presence of seven ships in the recovery area. Perhaps flotation bags were carried. According to some sources, the Royal Australian Navy obtained "a few pictures" as "the craft dropped by parachute to the recovery site. . ." . Recovery would have permitted engineers to study the effects of re-entry heating and to determine structural behaviour of the vehicle. They would have been looking at temperatures, pressures, heat transfer rates, lift, drag, and material behaviour.

The dual Proton missions of Cosmos 997 & 998, 881 & 882, and 1100 & 1101 were part of the development of the flyback Kosmolyot booster. The first two Cosmos missions were returned to Earth after one orbit. Cosmos 1100 and 1101 had one craft returned on the first revolution, the second craft on the second revolution. Estimates on the size of these bodies vary, from about 9,000 kg (19,800 lb) to more than double the weight of Soyuz, or 6,800 kg (14,960 lb).

Kosmolyot Future Development

Skripko said that the development of Kosmolyot "is a very complicated problem, the solution of which will require much time, effort and funds. But this task will be worked on. Only this system can make the existence of giant complexes in orbit and the mastering of outer space for the needs of mankind possible. "Scientists will have to create not only powerful rockets and special technology capable of delivering cargoes to orbit at a low cost, but, what is equally important, orbital factories specializing in the production of certain units and construction elements of giant stations and special devices for their assembly. Man is likely to take part in this work".

Kosmolyot’s payload potential may depend to a large extent upon the development of high-energy oxygen/hydrogen engines. These engines may also be part of the second and third stages of the new Soviet heavy booster. Such a development project would represent a significant commitment of resources, comparable to that of developing the Saturn V in the United States. It is reasonable to assume that the flight systems aboard Albatross will be sufficiently automated through the use of computers to permit a two-man crew to fly the craft. This would allow the maximum number of passengers. Thus Albatross would carry the members of the crew to the yet-to-be-orbited heavy space station, which may have facilities to support 20 inhabitants in the short term and 100 cosmonauts if the Soviets expand orbitaf operations in the long term. The latter scenario could involve more than one heavy station in orbit simultaneously. This could entail the launch of the new heavy booster, with a payload capability of approximately 220,000 kg (485,000 lb) as many as four times a year.