The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105, part of the Spiral program, was a crewed test vehicle to explore low-speed handling and landing. It was a visible result of a
Soviet project to create an orbital
spaceplane. The MiG 105 was nicknamed "Lapot" (russian: лапоть, or
bast shoe (the word is also used as a slang for "
shoe")), for the shape of its nose.
Development
The program was also known as the Experimental Passenger Orbital Aircraft (EPOS). Work on this project began in 1965, with the project being halted in 1969, only to be restarted in 1974 in response to the U.S.
Space Shuttle Program. The test vehicle made its first subsonic free-flight test in 1976, taking off under its own power from an old airstrip near Moscow. Flight tests, totaling eight in all, continued sporadically until 1978. The actual space plane project was cancelled when the decision was made to instead proceed with the
Buran project. The MiG test vehicle itself still exists and is currently on display at the
Monino Air Force Museum in Russia.
Spiral concept
* Soviet engineers opted for a midair launch scheme for Spiral. Known as "50 / 50", the idea was that the spaceplane and a liquid fuel booster stage would be launched at high altitude from the back of a custom-built
hypersonic
In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds 5 times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above.
The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since in ...
jet. The mothership was to have been built by the
Tupolev Design Bureau (OKB-156) and utilize many of the same technologies developed for the
Tu-144 supersonic transport and the
Sukhoi T-4 Mach 3 bomber. It was never built.
* Spiral was a conventional
delta wing
A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ).
Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitabl ...
that featured innovative variable-
dihedral wings. During launch and reentry, these were folded upward at 60 degrees. After dropping to subsonic speeds post-reentry, the pilot lowered the wings into the horizontal position, giving the spaceplane better re-entry and flight characteristics.
* Spiral was built to allow for a powered landing and go-around maneuver in case of a missed landing approach. An air intake for a single Kolesov turbojet was mounted beneath the central vertical stabilizer. This was protected during launch and re-entry by a clamshell door which opened at subsonic speeds.
* Spiral was to have been protected by what Soviet engineers termed "scale-plate armour": niobium alloy
VN5AP and molybdenum