Almaz

• 1. Secret Origins And Design

  ›

  Vladimir Chelomey stood at the head of OKB-52 design bureau in the early 1960s. He watched American press reports about the Manned Orbiting Laboratory project with intense focus. The U.S. Air Force had publicized their MOL plans widely, giving Chelomey plenty of material to lobby for a Soviet response. He began work on what would become the Almaz program as a direct countermeasure. Three major hardware components formed the backbone of this secret initiative. The Orbital Piloted Station module served as the station core with a maximum diameter of roughly four meters. A mass of approximately six thousand kilograms filled its internal habitable volume of thirty cubic meters. The Functional Cargo Block provided resupply capabilities while the VA spacecraft handled crew launch and return duties. Initial designs called for launching an Almaz-OPS space station mated with a VA return craft atop a UR-500 Proton rocket. Crew members accessed the laboratory through a hatch located in the heat shield at the bottom of the VA capsule after reaching orbit.

  37

• 2. Military Hardware And Armament

  ›

  A unique 23mm Rikhter cannon mounted on the forward belly of each station defined the Almaz defense measures. This revolver cannon originated from the tail-gun of the Tupolev Tu-22 bomber aircraft. It possessed a theoretical rate of fire between 1800 and 2600 rounds per minute. Each projectile weighed either 168 grams or 173 grams depending on the specific ammo type used. These projectiles flew at speeds of 850 meters per second relative to the station itself. To aim the fixed mounting, the entire station had to turn to face the target directly. Salyut 3 conducted a successful remote test firing when operating uncrewed due to concerns over excessive vibration and noise. Twenty rounds were fired during this end-of-mission test sequence. No other known armed crewed military spacecraft ever flew into orbit like these Soviet stations. Later plans for OPS-4 included replacing the aircraft cannon with an advanced Shchit-2 space-to-space system. That two-projectile system never appeared publicly despite being used experimentally by some sources.

  68

• 3. Flown Stations And Missions

  ›

  The first Almaz station launched on the 3rd of April 1973 under the designation Salyut 2. An accident days after launch left the vessel disabled and depressurized before any crew could arrive. A second station named Salyut 3 reached orbit on the 25th of June 1974 carrying the OPS-2 core. The Soyuz 14 spacecraft crew spent fifteen days aboard during July 1974 operations. A second expedition launched in August 1974 failed to reach the station successfully. Three crews total operated Almaz stations for eighty-one days combined before program termination. Salyut 5 entered orbit on the 22nd of June 1976 as the final operational unit of the series. Two crews visited this station in mid-1976 and late 1977 respectively. It deorbited on the 8th of August 1977 breaking up upon atmospheric reentry. Five crewed Soyuz expeditions flew to these military stations overall. Only three missions actually reached their targets while just two were considered fully successful at that time. The Soviet Ministry of Defense judged in 1978 that maintenance costs outweighed benefits relative to automatic reconnaissance satellites.

  510

• 4. Evolution Into Radar Satellites

  ›

  Following cancellation of the crewed program, engineers reconfigured Almaz stations into uncrewed heavy radar-carrying reconnaissance satellites. Three such satellites launched between November 1986 and March 1991 under various designations. The first Almaz-T vehicle blasted off from Baikonur on the 29th of November 1986 but failed to reach orbit due to stage separation issues. A safety system destroyed the vehicle shortly after launch failure. Kosmos 1870 successfully reached orbit on the 25th of July 1987 with an inclination of 71.92 degrees toward the Equator. This spacecraft functioned for two years providing radar imagery with resolution down to twenty-five meters until deorbiting on the 30th of July 1989. Art Dula later identified it as the first commercial radar satellite during his marketing work. The third Almaz-1 spacecraft launched on the 31st of March 1991 suffered communications antenna failures and partial solar panel deployment issues. Despite these problems it worked successfully for eighteen months before deorbiting over the Pacific Ocean on the 17th of October 1992. Seven additional spaceframes existed when the original program ended including OPS-4 and several Almaz variants.

  41219

• 5. Legacy In Modern Spaceflight

  ›

  The heritage of the Almaz space station program continues into present-day international space stations. DOS space station core modules derived directly from the Almaz-OPS hull design mated with Soyuz-derived subsystems by Sergei Korolev's organization OKB-1. OKB-1 competed against Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 bureau while short-cutting development time for early stations. DOS-1 formed the basis for Salyut 1 which became history's first space station in 1971. DOS-5 and DOS-6 served as cores for long-lived Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 stations respectively. DOS-7 provided the Mir Core Module for the first modular space station ever built. DOS-8 became the Zvezda Service Module still in use today on the International Space Station. The Functional Cargo Block evolved into a broad classification used across many Soviet and Russian modules. The Kvant-1 module of the Mir space station represented the first space station module of its kind. The Zarya Functional Cargo Block remains active on the International Space Station as of current operations. Habitat propulsion and service systems from TKS spacecraft also contributed to modern station architectures.

  1516

• 6. Private Sector Revival Attempts

  ›

  The defunct private spaceflight company Excalibur Almaz purchased two partially completed Almaz-205 and Almaz-206 hulls from Russian NPO Mashinostroyeniya. These vessels originated from the former OKB-52 design bureau where Vladimir Chelomey once worked. The Almaz-205 module resembled OPS-2 of the Salyut 3 station while Almaz-206 matched OPS-3 of Salyut 5 more closely. Four VA return capsule hulls derived from TKS/VA spacecraft were acquired alongside these main sections. One capsule planned support for space tourism while three others reserved scientific and commercial payloads. Development of propulsion systems for the VA capsule reportedly delegated to an unnamed European organization by 2009. Excalibur Almaz postponed its first launch to 2015 to include deep space capabilities like asteroid mining. Financial trouble plagued the company in 2015 leaving uncertainty about future operations. The business ceased all activities in 2016 without ever launching a single spacecraft. As of 2021 one hull sits on permanent display at the Isle of Man Motor Museum while another remains unaccounted for.

  13171922