Home > R-7 rocket

The R-7 was 34 m long, 3 m in diameter and weighed 280 tons, it was two-stage, powered by rocket motors using liquid oxygen (lox) and kerosene and was capable of delivering its payload around 8,800 km, with an accuracy ( CEP) of around 5,000 m. A single nuclear warhead was carried with a nominal yield of 3 Mt. The initial launch was boosted by four strap-on rockets making up the first stage with a central 'sustainer' motor powering through both the first and the second stage. The guidance system was inertial with radio control vernier rockets.

Design work began at OKB-1, Kaliningrad (later S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia) and other divisions in 1953 with the requirement for a two-stage missile of 170 tons with a range of 8,000 km carrying a 300 kg warhead. Following first ground tests in late 1953 the initial design was heavily reworked and the final design was not approved until May 1954. The first testing of the new missile, codenamed 8K71, was on May 15, 1957 from Baikonur Cosmodrome. A fire in a strap-on rocket led to an unintended crash 400 km from the site. Following another unsuccessful test the first successful long flight, of 6,000 km, was made on August 21. It was announced by Tass on August 26. A modified version of the missile placed Sputnik 1 in orbit from Baikonur on October 4 and Sputnik 2Sputnik 2 was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, at 19:12:00 on November 3, 1957, and was the first spacecraft to carry biological material. It was a 4 meter high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 meters. It contained several com on November 3November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 58 days remaining. Events 1755 The colony of Massachusetts offers a bounty of 20 British pounds for the scalps of native american boys and girls under the age of.

Following these first tests certain modifications were found to be needed and test flights were not completed until December 1959. The addition development resulted in the 8K74 which compared to the 8K71 was lighter, had better navigation systems, more powerful engines and more fuel extending its range to 12,000 km and payload to 5,370 kg. The warhead was tested on Novaya ZemlyaThe archipelago of Novaya Zemlya ( Russian: "New Land"; formerly known as Nova Zembla consists of two major islands in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia, separated by the narrow Matochkin Strait, and a number of smaller ones. The two main islands ar in October 1957 and again in 1958, yielding an estimated 2.9 Mt.

The first strategic-missile unit became operational on 9 February, 1959Events January-February January 1 Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. January 1 Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when forces of Fidel Castro advance January 2 CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Bac at Plesetsk in north-west Russia. On 15 December, 1959Events January-February January 1 Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. January 1 Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when forces of Fidel Castro advance January 2 CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Bac it tested its R-7 missile for the first time. However, the R-7 missiles were considered to be a failure as a weapons system. Only six launch sites in total became operational, four at Plesetsk and two at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The costs of the system were huge, mostly due to the difficulty of constructing in remote areas the large launch sites required. At one point, each launch site was projected to cost 5% of the Soviet defence budget. However, these huge costs were not unique for a first generation missile and the US experienced similar problems.

Besides the cost, the missile had other debilitating operational problems. With the U-2 overflights, the enormous R-7 launch complexes could not be hidden and could expect to be destroyed quickly in any nuclear war. The enormous R-7 took almost twenty hours to prepare for launching, and it could not be left on alert for more than a day due to its cryogenic fuel system. Therefore, the Soviet force could not be kept on permanent alert, and could be destroyed before launching even by American bombers while they stood no chance against American ICBMs. The failure of the R-7 pushed the Soviet Union into rapidly developing second-generation missiles which would be viable weapons systems.

The 8K71 and the 8K74 variants were manufactured as the R-7 and R-7A. The missiles were fully deployed by 1962Events January January 1 Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand January 3 Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro January 4 New York City introduces a train that operates without a crew on-board January 8 Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is e and were phased-out by 1968Events Undated Booker Prize for Fiction is established by Booker plc. 1968 is known as the year of the Prague Spring and also the year of the Paris riots. The ASCII character code is standardized as ANSI Standard X3. Nauru adopt his national anthem of the. But it was still used for space research, where it was further developed into the reliable Vostok, Voskhod and later the Soyuz launchers.

See also: List of missiles

References:

The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword, Steven J. Zaloga, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, 2002.