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Soviet space program

The Soviet space program[1] (Russian: Космическая программа СССР, romanizedKosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[2]

Formed

1955–1991

Sputnik 1
(4 October 1957)

Vostok 1
(12 April 1961)

25 December 1991

Soyuz TM-13
(2 October 1991)

Soviet investigations in rocketry began with the formation of a research laboratory in 1921, but these efforts were hampered by the devastating war with Germany. Competing in the Space Race with the United States and later with the European Union and China, the Soviet program was notable in setting many records in space exploration, including the first intercontinental missile (R-7 Semyorka) that launched the first satellite (Sputnik 1) and sent the first animal (Laika) into Earth orbit in 1957, and placed the first human in space in 1961, Yuri Gagarin. In addition, the Soviet program also saw the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963 and the first spacewalk in 1965. Other milestones included computerized robotic missions exploring the Moon starting in 1959: being the first to reach the surface of the Moon, recording the first image of the far side of the Moon, and achieving the first soft landing on the Moon. The Soviet program also achieved the first space rover deployment with the Lunokhod programme in 1966, and sent the first robotic probe that automatically extracted a sample of lunar soil and brought it to Earth in 1970, Luna 16.[3][4] The Soviet program was also responsible for leading the first interplanetary probes to Venus and Mars and made successful soft landings on these planets in the 1960s and 1970s.[5] It put the first space station, Salyut 1, into low Earth orbit in 1971, and the first modular space station, Mir, in 1986.[6] Its Interkosmos program was also notable for sending the first citizen of a country other than the United States or Soviet Union into space.[7][8]


After WWII, the Soviet and US space programs both utilised German technology in their early efforts. Eventually, the program was managed under Sergei Korolev, who led the program based on unique ideas derived by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, sometimes known as the father of theoretical astronautics.[9] Contrary to its American, European, and Chinese competitors, who had their programs run under a single coordinating agency, the Soviet space program was divided and split among several internally competing design bureaus led by Korolev, Kerimov, Keldysh, Yangel, Glushko, Chelomey, Makeyev, Chertok and Reshetnev.[10]


The Soviet space program served as an important marker of Soviet claims to its global superpower status.[11]: 1 

Internal competition[edit]

Unlike the American space program, which had NASA as a single coordinating structure directed by its administrator, James Webb through most of the 1960s, the USSR's program was split between several competing design groups. Despite the remarkable successes of the Sputnik Program between 1957 and 1961 and Vostok Program between 1961 and 1964, after 1958 Korolev's OKB-1 design bureau faced increasing competition from his rival chief designers, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko, and Vladimir Chelomei. Korolev planned to move forward with the Soyuz craft and N-1 heavy booster that would be the basis of a permanent crewed space station and crewed exploration of the Moon. However, Dmitry Ustinov directed him to focus on near-Earth missions using the Voskhod spacecraft, a modified Vostok, as well as on uncrewed missions to nearby planets Venus and Mars.


Yangel had been Korolev's assistant but with the support of the military, he was given his own design bureau in 1954 to work primarily on the military space program. This had the stronger rocket engine design team including the use of hypergolic fuels but following the Nedelin catastrophe in 1960 Yangel was directed to concentrate on ICBM development. He also continued to develop his own heavy booster designs similar to Korolev's N-1 both for military applications and for cargo flights into space to build future space stations.


Glushko was the chief rocket engine designer but he had a personal friction with Korolev and refused to develop the large single chamber cryogenic engines that Korolev needed to build heavy boosters.


Chelomey benefited from the patronage of Khrushchev[58]: 418  and in 1960 was given the plum job of developing a rocket to send a crewed vehicle around the Moon and a crewed military space station. With limited space experience, his development was slow.


The progress of the Apollo program alarmed the chief designers, who each advocated for his own program as the response. Multiple, overlapping designs received approval, and new proposals threatened already approved projects. Due to Korolev's "singular persistence", in August 1964—more than three years after the United States declared its intentions—the Soviet Union finally decided to compete for the Moon. It set the goal of a lunar landing in 1967—the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution—or 1968.[58]: 406–408, 420  At one stage in the early 1960s the Soviet space program was actively developing multiple launchers and spacecraft. With the fall of Krushchev in 1964, Korolev was given complete control of the crewed program.[62][63]


In 1961, Valentin Bondarenko, a cosmonaut training for a crewed Vostok mission, was killed in an endurance experiment after the chamber he was in caught on fire. The Soviet Union chose to cover up his death and continue on with the space program.[64]

1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the .

R-7 Semyorka

1957: First satellite, .

Sputnik 1

1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog on Sputnik 2.

Laika

1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, .

Luna 1

1959: First data communications, or , to and from outer space, Luna 1.

telemetry

1959: First man-made object to pass near the , first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1.

Moon

1959: First probe to impact the Moon, .

Luna 2

1959: First images of the Moon's , Luna 3.

far side

1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs on Sputnik 5.

Belka and Strelka

1961: First probe launched to Venus, .

Venera 1

1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, on Vostok 1, Vostok program.

Yuri Gagarin

1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space , Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).

Gherman Titov

1962: First dual crewed spaceflight, and Vostok 4.

Vostok 3

1962: First probe launched to Mars, .

Mars 1

1963: First woman in space, , Vostok 6.

Valentina Tereshkova

1964: First multi-person crew (3), .

Voskhod 1

1965: First extra-vehicular activity (), by Alexsei Leonov,[80] Voskhod 2.

EVA

1965: First radio telescope in space, .

Zond 3

1965: First probe to hit another planet of the (Venus), Venera 3.

Solar System

1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon, .

Luna 9

1966: First probe in lunar orbit, .

Luna 10

1966: , Molniya 1.[81]

first image of the whole Earth disk

1967: First uncrewed rendezvous and docking, /Cosmos 188.

Cosmos 186

1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, and other lifeforms on Zond 5.

Russian tortoises

1969: First docking between two crewed craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, and Soyuz 5.

Soyuz 4

1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, .

Luna 16

1970: First robotic space rover, on the Moon.

Lunokhod 1

1970: First full with a soft landing and useful data transmission. Data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar System (Venus), Venera 7

interplanetary travel

1971: First space station, .

Salyut 1

1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, .

Mars 2

1971: First probe to land on Mars, .

Mars 3

1971: First armed space station, .

Almaz

1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make a soft landing on Venus, first photos from the surface of Venus, .

Venera 9

1980: First Asian person in space, Vietnamese Cosmonaut on Soyuz 37; and First Latin American, Cuban and person with African ancestry in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38

Pham Tuan

1984: First Astronaut in space, Rakesh Sharma on Soyuz T-11 (Salyut-7 space station).

Indian

1984: First woman to , Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station).

walk in space

1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations ( and Salyut 7).

Mir

1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby , Vega 2.

Vega 1

1986: First permanently crewed space station, , 1986–2001, with a permanent presence on board (1989–1999).

Mir

1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4Mir.

Vladimir Titov

1988: First fully automated flight of a spaceplane ().

Buran

Heavy rover was going to be launched by the abandoned N1 launcher between 1974 and 1975.

Mars 4NM

Mars Mars 5NM was going to be launched by a single N1 launcher in 1975.

sample return mission

Mars sample return mission or (Mars-79) was to be double launched in parts by Proton launchers, and then joined in orbit for flight to Mars in 1979.

Mars 5M

an algorithmic visual programming language developed for the Buran space project.

DRAKON

a Soviet space program designed to give nations on friendly relations with the Soviet Union access to crewed and uncrewed space missions

Intercosmos

List of Russian aerospace engineers

List of Russian explorers

List of space disasters

an honorary title

Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR

the program's eventual post-Soviet continuation under the Russian Federation

Roscosmos

Russian astronaut corps

Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps

which were used to identify launch vehicles of the Soviet Union when their Soviet names were unknown in the USA

Sheldon names

Soviet rocketry

Space Race

, a 2007 French documentary film on the Lunokhod program

Tank on the Moon

Baker, David; Zak, Anatoly (September 9, 2013). . RHK. Retrieved May 20, 2022.

Race for Space 1: Dawn of the Space Age

Chertok, Boris (2005). . National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved May 29, 2022.

Rockets and People Volumes 1-4

Siddiqi, Asif (2000). (PDF). Washington, D.C: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Div. Retrieved May 22, 2022.

Challenge to Apollo : the Soviet Union and the space race, 1945-1974

Andrews, James T.: Red Cosmos: K. E. Tsiolkovskii, Grandfather of Soviet Rocketry. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009)

Brzezinski, Matthew: Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age. (Holt Paperbacks, 2008)

Burgess, Colin; French, Francis: , 1961–1965. (University of Nebraska Press, 2007)

Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era

Burgess, Colin; French, Francis: , 1965–1969. (University of Nebraska Press, 2007)

In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility

Harford, James: Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. (John Wiley & Sons, 1997)

: Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974. (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2000)

Siddiqi, Asif A.

Siddiqi, Asif A.: The Red Rockets' Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857–1957. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Siddiqi, Asif A.; Andrews, James T. (eds.): Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011)

Rödel, Eberhard (2018). The Soviet space program: first steps: 1941-1953. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.  978-0764355394.

ISBN

Reichl, Eugen (March 28, 2019). The Soviet Space Program: The Lunar Mission Years: 1959–1976 (1st ed.). Schiffer Military History.  978-0-7643-5675-9.

ISBN

Reichl, Eugen (2019). The Soviet space program: the N1, the Soviet Moon rocket. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing.  978-0764358555.

ISBN

Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2009). The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives, Legacy, and Historical Impact. Praxis.  978-0-387-84824-2.

ISBN