THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM TEN YEARS AFTER SPUTNICK I

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
MEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
The Soviet Space Program Ten Years After Sputnick I
Secret
45
6 October 1967
No. 0310/67B
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THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM TEN YEARS AFTER SPUTNIK I
October 4th marked the tenth anniversary of the,
flight of Sputnik I, the world's first artificial
earth satellite. What have the Soviets tried to
achieve during this period, what have they actually
accomplished, how did they do it, and what are the
prospects in the years to come?
Some see the Soviet space program as only a
scheme to capture spectacular headlines, some con-
sider it an exclusively military effort, and still
others view the past ten years as an orderly unfold-
ing of a long-range master plan with neither false
steps nor blind alleys. The Soviets themselves fre-
quently have characterized their program as purely
scientific and not competitive with that of the US.
None of these diagnoses is completely right or
wrong. The Soviet space program has looked a good
deal like that of the US and has featured amixture:
of scientific, military, and commercial ventures.
It has gained world-wide headlines with .spectacular
achievements; a creditable number of Soviet flights,
on the other hand, quietly made solid contributions
to man's understanding of the cosmos. Certain seg-
ments of the program have indeed exhibited a, high
degree of orderly planning and intelligent execu-
tion; but there have been dead ends, blunders,-and
even disasters.
Early Sputniks
The orbiting of Sputnik I
on 4 October 1957 was atre-
mendous achievement for its
day. Whether the timing of the
launch was determined by a de-
sire to beat the US into space
or reflected an independent So-
viet schedule is unclear. The
Soviet program already had been
in existence several years.
The USSR's permanent Interdepart-
mental Commission for Inter-
planetary Travel was set up four
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or five years before the US
created its National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, and
in 1954 the USSR established the
Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, to be
awarded for accomplishments in
interplanetary communications.
Sputnik II, launched in No-
vember 1957 with the dog Laika
aboard, represented the second
major Soviet achievement and
provided a clear indication of
the USSR's strong interest in
developing means of sustaining
life in space. The Soviets next
showed the world their
weight-lifting capability by
launching Sputnik III, a capsule
weighing nearly 3,000 pounds.
The use of the very large, first
generation SS-6 ICBM as a space
booster made such launches pos-
sible. This booster is still
the mainstay of the Soviet pro-
gram and has been used to launch
the majority of the more than 250
Soviet satellites put into orbit
thus far.
The Interplanetary Program
ended in failure. Nine payloads
failed to eject from earth orbit
into interplanetary trajectories.
Most frustrating to the Soviets
has been the fact that every probe
put into an interplanetary trajec-
tory suffered a communications
failure prior to reaching its ob-
jective.
The interplanetary story con-
tinues: a probe recently launched
toward Venus is operating properly
and is expected to reach the
planet on 18 October. It is very
likely that shots will be at-
tempted in January 1969, when
the Venus window will again be
open, and in February 1969, when
firings to Mars will be possible.
The Soviets unmanned lunar
program started spectacularly
but soon lapsed into a long dry
spell. Their solid initial ac-
complishments subsequently were
eclipsed by more spectacular US
successes.
Outstanding among the dif-
ferences between the Soviet and
US programs has been the greater
emphasis the USSR has put on un-
manned exploration of the moon
and, especially, the planets.
The Soviets have taken advantage
of eight of the nine Mars or
Venus "launch windows" open
since the fall of 1960, when they
made their first attempt to
launch an interplanetary probe.
Most of the attempted flights
The USSR started launching
probes toward the moon soon
after its initial venture into
space. Luna 1 was successfully
ejected toward the moon on 2 Jan-
uary 1959. Although Luna 1
missed the moon by a wide margin,
the operation represented a sig-
nificant step orward. Later the
same year the Soviets hit the
moon, with Luna 2, and photo-
graphed its hidden side--a bril-
liant achievement--with Luna 3.
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All of the early lunar
shots were flown on a rela-
tively simple direct-ascent
trajectory, but subsequent
probes were made to circle
the earth in a "parking" or-
bit before being blasted
out toward the moon. This
procedure--more complex but
permitting the use of heav-
ier payloads--has become
standard for all lunar, in-
terplanetary, and deep-
space launches. The Soviets
also put a more powerful
third stage on their launch
vehicle.
The. lunar program, using
the parking orbit technique,
resumed in 1963 with the goal
of orbiting the moon and of
load on the
a
a
t-landin
o
y
p
g
f
s
surface. Lunas 4, 5, 6, 7, Far Side of Moon TakonFromLunilc8
and 8 all missed the moon or
crashed onto it, and six other
launches either failed to attain
the parking orbit or to eject
from it, before Luna 9 soft-
landed in January 1966. The So-
viets were surprisingly slow in
correcting the deficiencies
plaguing this program, a failing
that has been noted in other
parts of the space effort, too.
After the flight of Luna 9, how-
ever, they successfully placed
three probes into lunar orbits--
Lunas 10, 11, and 12--and made a
a second landing with Luna 13.
Since Luna 9, only one lunar probe
has failed. The quality and num-
ber of pictures taken by the So-
viet probes compares very poorly
with those obtained soon after by
the US Surveyors and Lunar Orbit-
ers.
Manned Space Flights
The beginning of the full-sys-
tems test phase of the Soviet
manned space program was signaled
by the launch of a 10,000-pound
payload containing an instrumented
dummy in May 1960. Six more. tests
of spacecraft carrying dogs led to
the electrifying flight of Yuri
Gagarin in Vostok 1 on 12 April
1961. Here, as elsewhere, the So-
viets used an "all-up" test
philosophy in preparing for their
first manned orbit41 flight. At
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the earliest opportunity, they
tested a vehicle-payload combina-
tion that was essentially the
same as the one ultimately flown
by Gagarin. This philosophy is
characteristic of the Soviets
and contrasts with the frequent
US practice of preparing for a
complex mission by a progression
of tests of increasing complex-
ity.
Titov's one-day flight took
place four months after Gagarin's
milestone single orbit. The next
year saw the dual flights of Vos-
toks 3 and 4, whose launches--a
day apart--were timed so that the
two ships passed within three
miles of each other. Although not
a true rendezvous--because the
spaceships were in different or-
bital planes--this operation in-
dicated that the Soviets could
control flight trajectory and
launch times precisely enough to
perform a rendezvous. The dual
flight of Vostoks 5 and 6 took
place in 1963. This opera-
tion was basically a repeat
of the Vostok 3 and 4
flights, with the added
wrinkle that one of the
spaceships contained a fe-
male cosmonaut, Valentina
Tereshkova.
Late in 1964 the USSR
put up Voskhod I, a capsule
containing three cosmonauts.
Voskhod 2, launched in March
1965, carried two men and fea-
tured the walk-in-space by T.Pnnny
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The two-year pause in the
Soviet manned flight program fol-
lowing the orbiting of Voskhod
2 was ended by the ill-fated
Soyuz-1 flight of Vladimir Koma-
rov. There has been no clear ex-
planation for the long hiatus.
It appears that the Soviets had
done about as much as they could
with the Vostok capsule and that
more complex missions would re-
quire a new spaceship. (A two-
year delay also occurred between
the US Mercury and Gemini flights.
The Vostok afforded the pilot
poor visibility and was ill-
suited for modification for ren-
dezvous and docking experiments
of the type performed by the
Geminis.
The only unexploited capa-
bility of the Soviet craft was
its capacity to support a long-
duration flight. It appears that
the Soviets could have exceeded
the Gemini record of 14 days in
space had they chosen to do so.
Why they failed to try is not
clear.
Soyuz-1 was indeed a new
spaceship, although it weighed
about as much as Voskhod and was
put up by the same booster u pr
per stage combinati nn _
Scientific Satellites
The Soviet scientific satel-
lite program has featured launches
of small (500-pound), nonrecover-
able payloads using SS-4 MRBMs
equipped with upper stages. The
Soviets have designated these
launches as the Cosmos series.
Firings have been occurring at a
rate of about seven per vpar I
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A variety of interesting ex-
periments and significant contribu-
tions to science have been made
by this program, even though it
does not enjoy high priority within
the Soviet space effort or compare
favorably with US scientific 25X1
achievements in space.
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teorological payloads for weather
forecasting have been orbited
successfully. These programs so
far have been much less exten-
sive than US efforts. It ap-
pears that the Soviets are find-
ing it difficult to put up pay-
loads having an acceptably long
operating life.
The Proton Booster
More recently, Molniya com-
munications satellites and me-
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Molniya i Communications Satellite
the SS-6. Three more Proton
launches have been mad
The inefficiency of the Pro-
ton launch system was most puz-
zling. By adding a relatively
small third stage, the Soviets
could have doubled the weight put
into orbit. It was expected that
this change would be made very
quickly, but instead the program
lapsed after the launch of Pro-
ton-3 in July 1966. It seems
likely that the performance of
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Among the most interesting
Soviet space flights in the past
few years have been those initi-
ated with the orbiting of a
28,000-pound Proton satellite in
July 1965. The Proton was twice
as heavy as any payload previously
put into orbit by the USSR and
signaled the availability of a
booster considerably larger than
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the booster fell short of the
expectations of the Soviets and
that they found it necessary to
modify the vehicle and possibly
its launch facilities.
With continued testing, this
new launch vehicle undoubtedly
will be perfected and made re-
liable, giving the Soviets a num-
ber of interesting options. They
could send a payload of 10,000
to 15,000 pounds toward the moon
or the nearby planets. This
weight is sufficient to allow a
manned circumlunar trip--that is,
a flight around the moon without
landing and a return to earth.
The weight is also great enough to
permit the soft-landing of an un-
manned payload on the moon to col-
lect a sample of the surface. A
rocket in the spacecraft would
then return to earth.
In earth orbit, 50,000 to
60,000 pounds would be ample for
a space station carrying six men
for four months or more. The
Soyuz ship could be used as a
ferry for bringing up replace-
ments and supplies.
The USSR is now believed to
be constructing a massive launch
facilit
F_ j The lack of interest the 25X1
Soviets have shown in the use of
high-energy propellants in the
upper stages of their booster
systems suggests that the new
launch system will use conven-
tional fuels. If this is the
case, the first-stage booster will
have to generate a thrust in ex-
cess of 10 million pounds if the
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Soviet payloads are to perform
missions of the type planned for
Saturn V. It seems clear that
the Soviets will use this vehicle
for manned flights, because no
unmanned missions to the nearby
planets require so large a
booster. It is unlikely that
manned flights to Mars or Venus
will be tried in the next several
years, however, because the
round-trip times are too long.
The booster could be used to
place a manned spacecraft weigh-
ing as much as a quarter of a
million pounds into a low orbit
around the earth. A manned lunar
landing is, nevertheless, the
most likely focus of Soviet at-
tention the next five-year
pe
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