Soviet Reusable Space Systems

There are no obvious selection criteria for a review of Soviet era re-usable spacecraft studies, nor is there any apparent upper limit to how many such studies might be included in such a review. Suffice it to say that such studies were quite numerous, and many were quite inventive, and one way or another almost all came to nothing. This is in no small measure due to the Soviet institutional structure of innovation, in which design bureaux [OKB] were tasked with designs, and separate production associations [NPO] were tasked with building objects. All lists are lies, and any list may be fairly criticized as too long, including insigificant items, or too short, neglecting important items.

At the dawn of astronautics, the issue of "Earth-Space-Earth" transportation was far from idle. They remain open and now, because relatively high the cost of disposable carrier rockets. One solution to this problem could become the creation of the aerospace system (AKS), i.e. launch of the orbital spacecraft (OS) from an airplane with a normal horizontal take-off and landing. The advantage of such ACS is the possibility of repeated use elements of the system. It was thought that reusability can significantly reduce the cost of transportation of goods to and from space.

Without significant energy costs the ACS allows going into the plane of the orbit with the AKS flight in atmosphere. The presence of parallax, i.e. non-zero distance between the take-off point and plane of the orbit, makes it possible to expand the "launch windows" during which the energy potential of the system can be used most effectively. And the availability in the system of a returned winged vehicle with a greater than ballistic aerodynamic quality, makes it unnecessary to wait when the plane the orbit will pass through a given landing point. Maneuvering in dense layers of the atmosphere, the crew of the OS in any case will land on the airfield.

The first manned spacecraft were wingless disposable apparatus. The reason was the lack of sufficient information on aerodynamics and flight dynamics of a winged spacecraft, especially in upper layers of the atmosphere. Unusual operating conditions required the use of materrials with the corresponding properties. Orientation to the creation of cruise vehicles posed a lot of unresolved problems and most importantly, it required a lot of time for testing, which both the USSR and the United States did not have. Both countries were forced to suspend the implementation of the first projects.

The idea of an airplane capable of flying, both in the atmosphere and in space exploration, was put forward at the beginning of the 20th century. Tsiolkovsky and F.A.Tsander. In the second half of the 1950s in TsAGI research began on the topic hypersonic aircraft - aircraft-type devices capable of flying in atmosphere and near-Earth space. It was assumed that the devices can reach speeds above M = 10 (about 3 km / s.) and altitudes more than 60km.