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МЕНЮ
| The magnificent sevenThe magnificent sevenTHE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 1. In September 1944 London was bombarded by the world's first ballistic missile, V2, "Vengeance Weapon No. 2". It did not make the slightest deflection in the course of the World War II, however gave an impetus to brainwork of American and Soviet rocketeers. In the course of Hermes operation in 1945 American agents secretly
took a group of German rocketeers away from the Soviets' occupation zone. 2. Sergei Korolyov, who was sent to Germany with the same mission,
also managed to select some German specialists, documents and materials. Mr. Korolyov and his teammates clearly saw weak spots of A-4, however 3. In 1947, Mr. M.K. Tikhonravov, a Head of the group studying
multistage rockets at the Research Institute of Artillery, proposed to use
a bunch, or a "packet" of R-3 rockets as the first stage. This was named 4. Concurrently with the creation of "the seven", a spacecraft was
also being designed. By the end of 1955 the preliminary project was ready
and creation of Sputnik began. According to the project, the satellite had
to weigh some 1400 kg and bear 300 kg of scientific equipment. However,
parameters of the supposed carrier did not allow the lift this much load. 5. As we remember, first-rate German specialists and parts of
rockets were brought to the United States. In 1946 at the White Sands Range
the first launch of A-4 rocket was made. The Americans started developing
their rocketry program and Werner von Braun had no small share in it. He
was the General Designer of a two-stage rocket named Bumper, where A-4
itself served as the first stage. On July 24,1950, Bumper was launched from
a new range located on the Canaveral Cape. In the same year Research Center
moved from the White Sands to the Redstone Arsenal, located in Huntsville, Back in Peenemuende, Germany Werner von Braun already matured plans of orbiting a satellite for spying upon adversary. These were plans to create a two-stage powerful rocket based on A-4, which would be able to develop the first cosmic velocity with spaceborne payload. That project died adorning. In 1948 the Secretary of Defense of the U.S. announced the intentions to orbit a shell-satellite in the nearest future, for military purpose, of course. This project required colossal expenses on both creation of a booster rocket and a spacecraft. It was just about the time when semiconductor transistor was only patented; electronics would have become miniature much later. In 1951 members of the British Interplanetary Society issued their work titled "Minimum Satellite", where a concept of orbiting of a satellite was described at utilization of existing technologies and components. One of the problems encountered by creators of a two-stage rocket was startup of the second-stage engines in weightlessness. Liquid propellant would not flow to where it was necessary. To make a solid fuel stage, a completely new class of solid propellants had to be created. In a packet design rocket the engines of the both stages could be started up already on earth which led to some loss in hoist capacity, but added much robustness. The Second International Geophysical Year was proclaimed since July However, in 1955 Dwight Eisenhower, the then President of the U.S.,
announced about the priority of military projects. This made the civil
program Vanguard a matter of secondary importance. The Martin Company (now In February 1956 the Vanguard rocket was ready. The 'Martin Company
and NRL carried out a number of trial launches from December 1956 to While the Martin Company built their Vanguard, Mr. Braun's team
designed their Redstone rocket. A modified A-4 was used as the first stage,
the second and third ones were packets of solid propellant accelerators. 6. In 1955 near Tyura-Tam station in Kazakhstan construction of a
rocket range began, which later became Baikonur Spaceport. On May 15 the
first "seven" started from this range. The first three launches failed. On 7. Americans realized that orbiting of the first satellite in the On December, 6 the Vanguard carrier exploded on a launchpad. The first |
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