Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering (MIT)
Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT)

MIT is now the only domestic enterprise that develops advanced solid-fuel strategic nuclear missile and nuclear intercontinental systems, both terrestrial and sea based. At the same time, the institute is a kind of top of the huge scientific and industrial iceberg, the basis of which is the most powerful cooperation, numbering today more than 600 Russian enterprises.

The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT) is a major center largely responsible for the nation's strategic deterrent capability. MITT's latest intercontinental ballistic Topol-M (SS-27) and submarine-launched Bulava-30 (SS-NX-30) missiles have come a long way since May 13, 1946, when the institute, then State Design Bureau 1, was, for the reasons of strategic expediency, brass-plated Powder Projectile Research Institute and became part of the Soviet Agricultural Engineering Ministry.

Short-range tactical missiles for land-based troops were developed in the Ministry of the Defense Industry (MOP) system. The main developer of these missiles was the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the chief designer of which was Aleksandr Nadiradze, and the main customer was the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces.

However, in the mid-1960s, with the very active support of Ustinov, Nadiradze went outside the bounds of his departmental framework and began to develop medium-range and then intercontinental missile systems. This was an area that had been allocated to MOM and the Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN), but not to MOP and the Ground Forces. In so doing, it became clear that the MOP system did not have an organization capable of developing control systems for such complexes. Therefore, it was necessary to make use of the experience and power of MOM’s main control system organization—Pilyugin’s NIIAP. Thus, Ustinov found an optimal solution.

But in so doing, MOM’s monopoly on the development of medium-range and intercontinental strategic missile complexes was broken. It turned out that the head organization for control systems, NIIAP, together with other instrument-building factories, was now obliged to work for MOP, the head ministry for Nadiradze’s missile complexes. Meanwhile, Pilyugin was inundated with orders for his own chiefs: Mishin, Yangel, and Chelomey. But the truth was that nobody twisted Pilyugin’s arm. He voluntarily agreed to work for another ministry without having asked for the approval of his own minister [i.e., Afanasyev], who couldn’t have liked all of this.

The history of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering (MIT), behind the inconspicuous name of which lies the many thousands of personnel that created almost a dozen nuclear ballistic missiles of medium and intercontinental range, actually originates from the decision of the USSR Council of Ministers on May 13, 1946 - a document that for many years determined the direction of development of the domestic missile construction after the end of World War II. It was in accordance with this decree that the Research Institute of Powder Rocket Projections - NII-1 of the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering, which in 1966 received the current name - the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, was organized.

Starting with the creation of weapons for the Army of the USSR Armed Forces, the Institute's specialists were later involved in the development of various systems and weapons systems for the Navy and the Air Force. A whole family of weapon complexes was developed at MIT to solve anti-submarine defense tasks in the interests of the Russian Navy: Burun, Smerch, Vikhr, Liven, and the unique complex RPK-9 Medvedka, equipped with an anti-submarine missile with a small anti-submarine homing missile torpedo. Moreover, since the middle of the 1950s the Institute has started developing samples of rocket weapons equipped with special, that is, tactical nuclear weapons: the Mars, Filin, Luna and Luna-M missile systems, thanks to which the Land Forces received modern tactical nuclear weapons.

From the very start, the institute focused on solid-propellant technology, which has proved more advanced than the more powerful liquid propulsion over the years. Overall, MITT has over 70 missile systems on its record, 12 of them nuclear-capable. Others include 29 types of rockets and missiles for the Army (the old Luna-M tactical rocket is still operational in many countries, including Russia) and scores more for the Navy (just to mention the Vikhr, Liven, and, most recently, Medvedka ship-to-ship systems), Air Force (the most remarkable is the AS-71), Space Force, military engineers, and the Emergency Situations Ministry.

On the surface, the institute has always been in the focus of Soviet leadership as everything came on first demand and it was raining awards and decorations - two Lenin Orders for the institute itself, two Hero of Socialist Labor Medals for the founder Alexander Nadiradze and one for his successor Boris Lagutin, 13 Lenin Prizes and 37 State Prizes for the staff and so on - but its history was also marked by bitter rivalries and dramatic turns.

In 1961 Alexander Davidovich Nadiradze, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Honored Inventor of the RSFSR, Lenin and State Prize Winner was appointed Director and Chief Designer of the Institute. For more than a quarter of a century - from 1961 to 1987 he defined the appearance of the institute, its development and success.

Selflessly working under the leadership of Boris Zhukov, the Luberetskiy collective of the Soyuz Design Bureau managed to create the required powder charges, but even the theoretical possibility of maintaining the stability of the characteristics, especially in mass production, was of great doubt.

Competition came to a climax in the early 1960s with the greater battlefield role of theater-level missiles. In the ultimate battle, Nadiradze's Temp faced the Gnom, a missile made by Boris Shavyrin and Sergei Nepobedimy at Kolomna KBM now widely known for its Grouse and Grail shoulder-fired SAMs. The Temp's higher cross-country and concealment capabilities were long weighed against the Gnom's more powerful ducted engine and, therefore, higher payload.

In the end, concealment prevailed as the wheeled truck the Temp was mounted on did not leave traces that could be seen from spy satellites, unlike the Gnom's tracked chassis. MITT won the first choice, the Gnom was never shown at a military parade on Red Square, and Gnom was cancelled. The Temp was commissioned fast though higher payload and range requirements later led to the heavier Temp-S and Temp-2S versions.

In 1965, after the removal of Nikita Khrushchev, as is well known, the branch system of managing the national economy was restored. It is also well known that at the same time, the so-called "nine" was created - a complex of sectoral defense ministries. Less is known about the consolidation of the functions of these ministries. On the one hand, the space and combat missile subjects moved to the newly created Ministry of General Machine Building, on the other - all the teams that had at least some experience in the creation of mobile missile systems entered the reconstituted Ministry of Defense Industry.

A distant leader in nuclear missile technology thanks to the Temp, MITT also became the only choice for what came to be known as the Pioner (SS-20 Saber), a three-nuclear-warhead Russian response to the U.S. Pershing I and Pershing II deployments in Europe. At a range of 5,500 km, its upgrade Pioner-UTTKh had such accuracy that it became one of the reasons for signing the bilateral Soviet-American Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, which set the 5,500 km as the upper limit.

Thus MITT contributed to nuclear disarmament, with all its 1,752 deployed and 845 ready-for-deployment missiles destroyed (the U.S. scrapped 859 and 283 missiles, respectively). This story had one particularly revealing episode when 72 sentenced Pioners were used in a U.S.-inspected wargame near the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The U.S. team was clearly thrown off balance by the sight of scores of missiles launched within hours without a minor fault, which is probably why one Saber is still kept at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The Pioner was gone but the expertise soon led to a more sophisticated design, the strategic Topol (SS-25 Sickle) ICBM finished by Boris Lagutin after Nadiradze's death in 1987. The road mobile three-stage RT-2PM Topol with the effective range of 10,000 km was the first-ever antimissile defense penetrating system. Having 360 Topol missiles built on the 7x7 MAZ-7912 and MAZ-7917 trucks, the Soviet leaders deployed them in the Siberian taiga and deep forests in European Russia, invisible to the AWACS planes and spy satellites, since 1986. Now they are to be replaced by the more precise SS-27s.

After break-up of the USSR in 1991 two rocket powers appeared instead - Russia and Ukraine. Although Russia became a formal successor to the USSR on nuclear weapons issues, Ukraine possess significant capbilities including production facilities for the SS-24 and SS-18 ICBMs as well as for space launchers and guidance systems. Thus, after restructuring theex-Soviet ICBM force, only two Russian dedicated missile manufacturers - Nadiradze Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, which built the SS-25, and Makeev State Rocket Center, solely responsible for SLBMs, retained governmental orders for that business. Other traditional manifacturers of ICBMs - Russian KB Salyut of Moscow and Ukrainian KB Yuznoye of Dniepropetrovsk - got out of missile orders and had to search for other application to their capabilities.

After the demise of the Soviet Union as MITT's Ukrainian- and Kazakh-based Topol contractors became independent, leaving Votkinsky Zavod in the Urals as the only production base. The loss was recoverable but needed political will, which was there in abundance, and money, which was in extremely short supply. Lagutin's successor Yury Solomonov, backed by the top military, was begging for money around the Kremlin and parliament, warning that a strategic gap was looming between the end of service life of old missiles and planned commissioning of new ones. They did not get a single "no" in response - yet not a single transfer to MITT's bank account.

The problem became worse with the beginning of the Wild-West-style privatization of the defense industry, in which producers of strategic parts and materials switched to Coca Cola bottles and the like. The scramble for money that followed deserves a separate story. For MITT, it became an ordeal that dwarfed the competition drama of the Communist times.

Yet Solomonov & Co won. On December 24, 1997, the first SS-27 was loaded into a silo in Tatishchevo, Saratov Region, the nuclear forces cluster that currently accommodates five full Topol-M regiments with, as on the first day of this year, 42 ICBMs on high-alert service. Solomonov, now 61, and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has promised the first road mobile deployment at Teikovo, Ivanovo Region, later this year, and the commissioning of the submarine-launched Topol-M sister Bulava-30 (SS-NX-30) as soon as the navy completes the Project 955 Borei nuclear subs currently under construction in the Arctic Severodvinsk.

President Vladimir Putin highly praised MITT's missiles in his public remarks, describing the Topol-M as "a missile that does not care" about whatever kind of defenses it might face, what with a hypersonic maneuverable re-entry vehicle shrugging off interceptors.

MITT ceased to be a purely defense firm and is currently engaged in many civilian programs as well, designing the Start space launch vehicles, the Ishim aircraft-based satellite orbiting technology, the new Moscow monorail transport system, the Zhavoronok independent wind power generators, water purification ozone plants, and so forth. Yet what makes the bulk of its fame is its great role in keeping peace and deterring adversaries.

In 2010, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering" was transformed into an open joint-stock company for the purpose of corporate integration of enterprises linked by a single technological chain (development - production - operation - decommissioning) into a structure with intellectual, production and financial resources. society "Corporation" MIT "and corporatization of the enterprises included in the corporation.

Presidential Decree No. 525 of May 11, 2009, as the priority line of activity of JSC "Corporation MIT" and joint-stock companies of the Corporation, defines: "development, production and maintenance of missile systems with solid-fuel missiles." The corporation includes:

• JSC "Votkinsky Zavod" is the main enterprise for the production of intercontinental solid-fuel ballistic missiles Topol-M, Yars, Bulava-30, operational-tactical missiles Iskander;
• OJSC Central Design Bureau Titan is a developer and manufacturer of mobile ground-based launchers for strategic missile complexes Topol-M, Yars, mobile launchers of the Iskander missile complex for operational-tactical purposes, auxiliary aggregates and technological equipment for missile systems complexes Topol-M, Yars, Bulava, Iskander, the developer of artillery systems;
• JSC "Barrikady Production Association" - manufacturer of mobile ground-based launchers and auxiliary machines and aggregates of the Topol-M, Yars, Iskander missile systems, artillery systems;
• JSC Izhevsk Motozavod Axion Holding is a manufacturer of automated combat control systems, telemetric equipment for missile and space-rocket complexes, satellite, radio relay and operational communications equipment for the Ministry of Defense of Russia;
• JSC Central Research Institute of Special Machine Building is the leading research center for the development of polymer composite materials. The developer and manufacturer of products made of polymer composite materials for solid-fuel strategic missiles, operational-tactical and tactical purposes, space launch vehicles, aviation equipment;
• JSC "FNPTs" Altai "is a leading research and production center for the creation of highly efficient, high-energy solid fuels for engines of strategic missiles. The developer and manufacturer of a solid fuel charge for a strategic missile of sea-based "Bulava";
• OJSC "Head Project Design Bureau" Projector "- developer and manufacturer of power supply systems for launchers, as well as mobile and stationary units and objects of strategic missile complexes" Topol-M "," Yars ";
• JSC "Moscow Machine Building Plant" Vympel "- manufacturer of special technological equipment for technical and launching complexes of strategic missile complexes and space launch vehicles;
• JSC "Research and Production Complex" Alternative Energy "is a developer and manufacturer of autonomous electrotechnical power supplies.

The production chain is quite complicated. Its coordinated work the country's leadership constantly pays great attention.