On March 9, 1957, the sun dawned on the Wenchang Launch Facility of the free and united Republic of China, where a new, heavier R-5 rocket was preparing for its initial launch. To say the rocket was a bit of a monstrosity would be an understatement. In the haste to build a vehicle, the CSRA grabbed whatever they could find. The third stage and scientific payload, reasonably, came from improvements intended for the very first R-1 sounding rockets that had been superseded by the R-2 and later R-3: a U-2000 kerosene/
AK20 high-pressure engine. The first stage came from a brand new engine design for 1956, an RD-211 main stage that also ran on kerosene and AK20 (historically used on the R-12 Dvina and Kosmos 2I). The second stage is where a rocket scientist's nightmare came in. There was a severe lack of options for gimbaled engines that could be ignited in flight. The first of the competing options, the AJ10 engine, required the efficient but highly toxic UDMH and inhibited white fuming nitric acid (FNA with over 95% nitric acid), as well as high-pressure tanks. After consideration and due to the time constraints, the alternative option was chosen: two S3.42T prototype first-stage engines from the military cruise missile program were borrowed for the first two R-5s. Due to the military's requirements, these were intended for use on vehicle-mounted ground-attack rockets, and thus the hypergolic igniters could be easily adapted for the R-5's peculiar staging requirements. Requiring only kerosene and
AK27, the engine's availability and resulting standardization in fueling allowed for the rocket to be completed within half a year. The goal was not to develop a standardized launch vehicle, though the R-5s would likely be serving as such for several years until improved launchers could be developed and built. The primary goal from our political leaders was to get up there fast and first.
At 11:43:40 local time, countdown completed and the rocket launched. Initial burn was stable, despite fears that the engines may have been inadequately tested. The first stage burn continued for 2 minutes and 8 seconds, followed by separation, spin-up on the second stage, and a couple minutes of coasting before orbital insertion could begin.
At T+04:33, one minute to apogee, the second-stage ullage motors ignited, followed quickly by the main engine.
Finally, at T+05:48, the third stage was spun up for spin-stabilization and the engine hotstaged, with separation occurring two seconds later as the second-stage engine burned out. Orbital insertion was successful, and Jinxing 1 became the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. Due to lack of control over the third stage, the resulting orbit was rather chaotic: perigee is at 245.7 km, and apogee at 3,803.4 km.
Let the Soviets with their Sputnik 1 in October and Americans with their Stayputnik exploding in December wail. Here, Chinese science reigns supreme, the crowning joy of a nation no longer at war with itself. The golden star's radio signals our triumph to the heavens, and the incoming data from the mass spectrometer will keep the scientists happy.
Long story short: I just beat the Soviets after not playing RO-1 for some time. But ye gods, that's a horrible franken-rocket. Using the main engine off a Scud as a second-stage sustainer is frankly a bit weird, but I didn't want to go full historical R-7 this time (even though I did build my second launch pad to handle up to 150t), researching 1958 Orbital Rocketry for RD-0105 would have pushed me too late, I didn't want to use the American engine this time, and the British Gamma-301 couldn't be resized easily.
Kerbal Space Program with RSS and RO-1
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1350451 times)