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De Spiral.
Under the five-year plan of the Air Force on orbital and hypersonic aircraft, go-ahead to actually proceed with development of a manned orbital vehicle in the USSR was given in 1965 to the Artem Mikoyan's OKB-155 design bureau, and 55-year-old Chief Designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky was selected as project manager. The new project dubbed Spiral.
The aerospaceplane project dated 29 June 1966 provided for the development of a 115-t orbital system consisting of three winged VTOL reusable aircraft: the 52-t HLA reusable hypersonic air-breathing launch aircraft, designated '50-50'; the RB expendable two stage rocket booster; and the OS manned orbital aerospaceplane, designated '50'. The system would take off vertically from a launch cart at a takeoff speed of 380-400 km/h.
The launch aircraft would accelerate the whole system to a hypersonic speed of M=6 (about 1,800 metres per second), releasing the components at an altitude of 28-30 km. The launch aircraft would return to its launch base after completing the mission, and the booster, burning fluorine+hydrogen fuel, would propel the aerospaceplane to the orbit.
The orbital aircraft would bring a payload of up to 10.3 tonnes to the circumpolar orbit of 130-150 km at the carrier offset of up to 750 km, if boosted by a launch aircraft with liquid hydrogen power plant, or 5 tonnes if the launch aircraft burnt kerosene.
The manned reusable single-seated orbital aircraft would be employed in daytime photographic reconnaissance, radar reconnaissance, space targets interception or ground attack, equipped with a space-surface missile for the latter function. The aircraft weighed 8.8 tonnes in all configurations, carrying 500 kg of combat payload for reconnaissance and interception, and 2,000 kg in attack configuration. Launched from the territory of the USSR, the aircraft would reach the 130-150-km orbits, inclined by 45-135 degrees. Manoeuvrability characteristics of the aircraft, propelled by the rocket booster power plant, burning fluorine and amidol provided for variable orbit inclination (to allow second target run) by 17 degrees for the reconnaissance and interception aircraft, and 7-8 degrees for an attack aerospaceplane armed with a missile. The interceptor version would perform a combined manoeuvre of simultaneously changing the inclination and ascending to 1,000 km, after which it would lose the weight to 4,900 kg.
A unique feature of the aerospaceplane was the variable dihedral wings. The outer skin was articulated to permit thermal expansion during re-entry. The wings were set at an angle and had a specific form, so that during re-entry at a 45-60 deg. angle of attack and the hypersonic quality of 0.8 the air stream would flow from the body down to the wings, rather than to the wing leading edges. Also, the wings were made separately variable to better controllability in case of yawing.
To improve landing parameters, after becoming subsonic, dual electric actuators moved the wings to a horizontal position, where they served as wings, substantially increasing the lift of the aerospaceplane for airbreathing operations, the wingspan reaching 7.4 m with a sweep of 30 deg. This increased the aerodynamic quality to 4.5.
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