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 Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union
launched an R-7 rocket that flew for more than 4,000 miles. Despite a mishap at
the end of the mission, the flight of "Old No. 7" marked an important
milestone in both the Cold War and the Space Race. As the first launch vehicle
capable of carrying a nuclear warhead from one hemisphere to another, the R-7
put all of Europe and parts of North America
within range of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Russian-built rocket would also
provide enough power to send the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1, into space.
The R-7 rocket was the brainchild of Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov, a
Russian-born aerospace engineer whose identity remained a state secret until
after his death in 1966. Known only as the "Chief Designer", Korolyov
had dreamed of rockets even while languishing in a Siberia
gulag during the 1930s. After his "rehabilitation" during the 1950s,
Sergei Korolyov advanced his ideas about rocketry within the Russian Academy
of Sciences, overcoming resistance from both military officers and Communist
party officials. Soviet decrees in 1953 ordered the development of a two-stage
rocket, but specified the addition of a 5.5-ton nuclear warhead.
 Sergei Korolyov's two-stage design was one of the greatest advances in
rocketry since Nazi Germany's A-4, a ballistic missile which was later known as
the V-2. When fitted with four strap-on boosters and a nuclear warhead, the R-7
stood 90-ft. tall and was 30 ft. in diameter at its base. When fully-fueled
with Kerosene T-1, the rocket's weight swelled to some 280 tons. The first
stage featured a four-chamber, liquid-propellant engine and two one-chamber
steering engines. The second stage incorporated a liquid-propellant engine of a
similar design, but only a single steering engine. At the moment of burn, Stage
1 achieved a velocity of 2170 m/s while Stage 2 reached 6385 m/s. The R-7's
maximum firing range, excluding the Earth's rotation, was 8000 km.
Work on the R-7 rocket was divided into three distinct phases. During Phase
1, engineers led by M.V. Keldysh designed critical components such as Vernier thrusters.
They also manufactured two lots of rockets: one for bench tests and the other
for flight tests. During Phase 2, another series of R-7 rockets was tested
under a more complete program. After additional modifications were made, a so-called "Commission of Experts" oversaw the manufacture of a third group of
rockets with updated flight characteristics. During all three phases,
system-specific tests targeted the core stage fuel-tank simultaneous depletion
system, the velocity control system, the normal and lateral stabilization
system, and the telemetry system.
The first R-7 rocket (Number 5L) arrived at Baikonur, a
660-square mile cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakstan, on March 3, 1957. Twelve days
later, 5L crashed midway through a 6,315.5 km flight, a victim of a fire in the
rocket's tail section. During the month of June, the Soviets made three
attempts to launch a second rocket (Number M1-6), but the missile was
ultimately removed from the pad because of persistent problems with an oxygen
valve in a strap-on booster. The launch of a third rocket (Number M1-9) in July
was equally disappointing, as the R-7 disintegrated at 32.9 seconds in flight.
Finally, on August 21, 1957, Number M1-9 was launched from Baikonur, traveling
all the way to the Kamchatka
Peninsula before its
warhead disintegrated some 10 km in the air.
Despite this mishap at the end of the mission, the Soviet
news agency TASS proudly announced "the creation of a long-range multistage
ballistic missile" on August 27, 1957. According to some historians, Western intelligence services dismissed this assertion as yet another piece of Soviet propaganda. Nevertheless, the successful launch of Sputnik-1 on October 4, 1957 would change the West's assessment of Soviet capabilities.
Resources:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/r7.html
http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/launchers/rocket-r7.html
http://www.asss.utvinternet.com/articles1/thechiefdesigner.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korole
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