Winston
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2009
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Launched on one of my favorite launch vehicles judged upon its appearance and exhaust plume. Nice roll-out and launch video below followed by a video about the ExoMars payload.
Proton initially started its life as a "super heavy ICBM." It was designed to launch a 100-megaton (or larger) thermonuclear weapon over a distance of 13,000 km. It was hugely oversized for an ICBM, and was never deployed in such a capacity. It was eventually used as a space launch vehicle. It was the brainchild of Vladimir Chelomei's design bureau as a foil to Sergei Korolev's N1 rocket whose purpose was to send a two-man Zond spacecraft around the Moon; Korolev openly opposed Proton and Chelomei's other designs for their use of toxic propellants.
A rushed development program led to dozens of failures between 1965 and 1972. Proton did not complete its State Trials until 1977, at which point it was judged to have a higher than 90% reliability.
Proton's design was kept secret until 1986, with the public being only shown the upper stages in film clips and photographs and the first time the complete vehicle was shown to the outside world happened during the televised launch of Mir.
Proton launched the unmanned Soviet circumlunar flights, and was intended to have launched the first Soviet circumlunar spaceflights, before the United States flew the Apollo 8 mission. Proton launched the Salyut space stations, the Mir core segment and expansion modules, and both the Zarya and Zvezda modules of the ISS.
[video=youtube;yrZpdIcJiH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrZpdIcJiH8[/video]
[video=youtube;t6EwfxSsna8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6EwfxSsna8[/video]
[video=youtube;-JhCUVxjFfA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JhCUVxjFfA[/video]
Proton initially started its life as a "super heavy ICBM." It was designed to launch a 100-megaton (or larger) thermonuclear weapon over a distance of 13,000 km. It was hugely oversized for an ICBM, and was never deployed in such a capacity. It was eventually used as a space launch vehicle. It was the brainchild of Vladimir Chelomei's design bureau as a foil to Sergei Korolev's N1 rocket whose purpose was to send a two-man Zond spacecraft around the Moon; Korolev openly opposed Proton and Chelomei's other designs for their use of toxic propellants.
A rushed development program led to dozens of failures between 1965 and 1972. Proton did not complete its State Trials until 1977, at which point it was judged to have a higher than 90% reliability.
Proton's design was kept secret until 1986, with the public being only shown the upper stages in film clips and photographs and the first time the complete vehicle was shown to the outside world happened during the televised launch of Mir.
Proton launched the unmanned Soviet circumlunar flights, and was intended to have launched the first Soviet circumlunar spaceflights, before the United States flew the Apollo 8 mission. Proton launched the Salyut space stations, the Mir core segment and expansion modules, and both the Zarya and Zvezda modules of the ISS.
[video=youtube;yrZpdIcJiH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrZpdIcJiH8[/video]
[video=youtube;t6EwfxSsna8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6EwfxSsna8[/video]
[video=youtube;-JhCUVxjFfA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JhCUVxjFfA[/video]
