On this day in engineering history, the Soviet
Union launched the Polyus spacecraft, a military test bed which
could have changed the course of the Cold War. Built largely from spare parts,
the orbiting weapons platform was rushed into production after U.S. President
Ronald Reagan proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) on March 23,
1983. Nicknamed "Star Wars", a reference to the 1977 science-fiction
blockbuster by George Lucas, Reagan's SDI called for both land- and space-based
weapons that could defend the United
States against an attack by intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Soviet military planners worried that space-based systems
could be used as anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons; however, and General Secretary
Yuri Andropov authorized the design of military countermeasures.
Although the Soviet space program typically ran on five-year
cycles, the Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM) rushed Polyus to the
launch pad. In July 1985, MOM Minister O.D. Baklanov ordered General Designer
D.A. Polukhin to finish the 100 metric ton satellite by September 1986. The
Energia Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV) was ready to carry payloads into
space, but Soviet space shuttle Buran
was still incomplete. Borrowing parts from existing spacecraft, Polukhin mated
a test-stand version of the TKS manned logistics vehicle to a prototype Skif-D space
platform. The central module was adapted from the Mir 2 Space Station. The
General Designer also used several systems and subsystems from the untested Buran, including the interface between
the Polyus and the Energia booster.
An Orbiting Weapons Platform
While Yuri Andropov and his successors, Konstantin Chernenko
and Mikhail Gorbachev, denounced President Reagan's proposed militarization of outer
space, Soviet designers armed the Polybus with several weapons systems. In a
published article called "Unknown Polybus", Yuri Kornilov of the Salyut Design
Bureau described the spacecraft's defenses against anti-satellite (ASAT)
weapons and beam weapons. To disable ASAT systems, the Polybus was fitted with
a recoilless cannon that featured both an optical sighting system and a
sighting radar. Kornilov also claimed that the Polybus could produce barium
clouds for diffusing particle beams. As for offensive weapons systems, reports
that the Polybus could deploy mines with a nuclear cannon remain
unsubstantiated.
On May 15, 1987, the Polybus was covered in a black shroud
and launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakstan. Although some
historians speculate that the spacecraft's shroud was radar-absorptive, it was
suitable for a funeral. Because the spacecraft's engines for orbital insertion
were in its nose, the downward-facing Polybus needed to yaw 180 degrees and
then roll 90 degrees before placement into working orbit. After disconnecting
from its Energia booster, however, the Polybus performed a 180 degree yaw turn
and then continued through to 360 degrees. When the spacecraft's engines fired,
the Polybus slowed and then tumbled into the Pacific Ocean.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/polyus.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia
http://www.buran-energia.com/polious/polious-desc.php
http://blizzard.rwic.und.edu/~nordlie/papers/asat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
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