The Forgotten Soviet Space Plane

the experimental passenger orbital aircraft program also known as spiral was a soviet secret project created to develop an orbital space plane and fighter spacecraft work on this multi-purpose spacecraft began in the early 1960s in response to the american shuttle program at the height of the cold war the objective was to build a vehicle that could fly in orbit at mach speeds and function as a reconnaissance bomber and interceptor spacecraft the spiral mig-105 crewed test vehicle resulted from years of research and testing the orbital space plane flew for the first time in 1976 however achieving their desired mach speeds would prove a more challenging feat than expected spiral the british french soviets and americans greatly benefited from the thousands of german scientists and engineers abducted after world war ii to help them push the boundaries of modern technology this included weapons of mass destruction and aircraft designs that got humanity closer to reaching outer space one day while the americans struggled at first to keep up with the achievements of the soviet union and especially the feats of cosmonaut yuri gagarin the creation of nasa put the united states on a path of steady improvements it was then that chief commander of the soviet air force k.a vershinan envisioned a one-of-a-kind project to stay ahead of their enemy rasheenan presented a proposal to vladimir mir systrev head at the central aero hydrodynamic institute and other aerospace manufacturers to develop orbital and aerospace vehicles bashing wanted to build a vehicle that could be pitched against the american x20 dinosaur or dynamic soarer developed by boeing it was rumored that the x-20 was meant to be the first u.s air force multi-purpose space plane and that it would be used for aerial reconnaissance satellite maintenance bombing and space rescues this program would ultimately ran from 1957 to 1963 with average results when the details were leaked roshinin was confident that the soviet union could develop the first spacecraft capable of orbital flights after insisting for several years racine's idea finally materialized in 1965 when glebe lozino lozinski from nikoi's okb 155 design bureau was assigned to oversee the development of this air orbital plane or vos as it was abbreviated in russian z a jaffa chief of the tsnii 30 research institute of the soviet air force would supervise the program along with other military and space organizations the program would be known as spiral and its main objective was to develop the soviet orbital fighter and study the possibilities of waging war in space with horizontal takeoff and reusable landing spacecraft three models the soviet air force and the russian aircraft corporation mig also known as mikoyan proposed the orbital fighter be configured in three different versions the first one was a reconnaissance version of the spiral that would carry radar and a state-of-the-art camera with a 0.75 to 1 meter resolution to conduct spy plane missions straight from orbit the second one was a bomber version that would be equipped with powerful orbit to surface missiles capable of striking targets on earth finally the third version was an interceptor that would be used for dogfighting and destroying enemy vehicles in space although spiral gained a lot of attention from the soviet high command mikoyan felt the pressure of unmanned satellites that were already in use however spiral had two advantages its expected cost efficiency ratio and the flexibility of having a fast response orbital fighter as a backup preliminary studies included developing three full-scale models that were part of the so-called experimental piloted orbital plane or epos sub-program each model was made explicitly for wind tunnel testing at subsonic supersonic and hypersonic speeds the initial results indicated that the 6.8 ton vehicles could reach 160 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 50 degrees after being launched on top of an r7 rocket from the soviet base of baikonur the supersonic and hypersonic configurations would later be equipped with rocket engines that would give them a thrust of 26 tons and this would translate into speeds that range between mach 6 to 8 or 8 times the speed of sound [Music] spyro mig 105 laput the spiral mig-105 spacecraft had a unique design and quickly earned the russian nickname lapot which translates to bash shu because of the peculiar shape of its nose the vertical takeoff horizontal landing vehicle or vthl had a standard delta wing that featured innovative variable dihedral wings during launch into space and re-entry into the atmosphere the wings folded upward at 60 degrees as the speed of lapel decreased to subsonic the cosmonaut would lower the wings to the conventional horizontal position to facilitate flight an air intake for a single turbo jet was mounted beneath the vertical stabilizer to allow the spiral to perform a powerful landing or a go around maneuver if it missed the landing approach the putt was designed to land on skids deployed from a set of doors on the side to the fuselage and the pilot had to climb into it through a hatch above the seat the spiral would be protected by a scale plate armor made up of niobium alloy and molybdenum disillusioned steel plates that allowed for thermal expansion during re-entry to earth in the case of an emergency the pilot compartment was designed to separate from the rest of the vehicle and parachute into the ground as if it were an escape capsule controls comprise rudder pedals a standard control column and separate controllers for the jet and rocket engines an sanu or automatic navigation and control system measured the aerodynamic controls propulsion consisted of a single kolosov rd-3635k turbojet and 500 liters of fuel were enough for 10 minutes of cruise at full thrust the propulsion system included a liquid propellant engine with a 1500 kilogram thrust while two backup engines provided another 40 kilograms fully loaded the spiral weighed over 420 kilograms it measured 10 meters with an approximate wingspan of 6.8 meters and a wing area of 24 meters expectations from 1965 to 1967 the wind tunnel models were intensively tested at the tsagi research institute in zakovsky near moscow a final design was eventually approved and the institute proceeded with vehicles launched by expendable rockets to test it at speeds that ranged from mach 3 to mach 14. besides mikoyan other design bureaus also participated in the project they included the legal key design bureau to develop the engine kb kerala design bureau for the two-stage rocket accelerator and other renowned soviet agencies however the program had difficulties when it came to developing the hypersonic version of the spiral as there was no technology available at that time to achieve the desired mach speeds the spiral program was then stopped in 1969 and did not resume until 1974 when soviet spies informed the kremlin of the american development of the space shuttle the test vehicle finally made its first manned flight in 1976 flown by pilot ag festivals lapot flew well at subsonic speeds eight more flight tests followed sporadically until 1978 when the government officially cancelled the program and focused on the energy of iran's space shuttle widely regarded as a copycat of nasa's own space shuttle although the spiral never left the prototype board the data gathered paved the way for other soviet space projects before the soviet union crumbled in 1989 the surviving prototype of the spiral space plane can be appreciated at the central air force museum in menino moscow oblast russia thank you for watching my video please like and subscribe to our dark documentary's channels to find more exciting historical content and let us know in the comments below what you think of this unique crossover between a spacecraft and an aircraft had it been produced do you think the orbital mig-15 could have played a significant role in the space race

Channel: Dark Space

Views: 87,343

Rating: 4.9374008 out of 5

Keywords: dark space, dark skies, dark docs, space, rocket, launch, documentary, documentary channel, history, history channel, nasa, usa, america, soviet, russia, astronaut, cosmonaut, mig, mig105, mig-105, spaceplane, space plane, forgotten, forgot, fail, failed, Spiral, secret

Id: xPFRvzHk0Mc

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021