The UR-200 was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by

Vladimir Chelomey Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey or Chelomei (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Челоме́й; 30 June 1914 – 8 December 1984) was a Soviet engineer of Ukrainian ethnicity and designer in missile program of the former Sovie ...

OKB-52 NPO Mashinostroyeniya (russian: НПО машиностроения, lit=RDA of machine manufacturing) is a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, Russia. During the Cold War it was responsible for several major weapons systems, including the UR-1 ...

in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. It was known during the Cold War by the NATO reporting name SS-10 '' Scrag'' and internally by the GRAU index 8K81. The design was authorized by the Decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU of March 16 and August 1, 1961, and the draft project was finished in July 1962. It first flew on November 4, 1963, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The ninth and final flight was conducted on October 20, 1964.

Description

The UR-200 was a two-stage liquid-propellant universal ICBM for delivery of replaceable payloads to the range up to 12000 km, launch of interceptor satellites for space defense, naval recon satellites, and orbital maneuvering warheads. It was capable of carrying around of payload, and could be launched from flat pads, or missile silos built for the R-16 missile. Unusually for a Soviet missile, the first stage provided attitude control by means of

thrust vectoring Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the ve ...

Nitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russia rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

and

UDMH Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH; 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, НДМГ or codenamed Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is used as a rocket propellant. It is a colorless liquid, with a sharp, fishy, ammonia-like smell ...

were used as propellants.

FOBS

The FOBS, or

Fractional Orbital Bombardment System A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) is a warhead delivery system that uses a low earth orbit towards its target destination. Just before reaching the target, it deorbits through a retrograde engine burn. Mark ZastrowHow does China’s ...

, was a Soviet programme to place a nuclear warhead into a 150 km

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

, in order to allow the warhead to approach the enemy from any direction, below missile tracking radar systems. The UR-200 was one of several rockets proposed for this purpose, along with the

8K713 The Global Rocket 1 (GR-1) was a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed but not deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The system also was given the NATO reporting name SS-X-1 ...

and R-36. The use of the UR-200 for FOBS deployment was cancelled in October 1964, when

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

was removed from power.

Operational history

The UR-200 was never deployed operationally. The successful development of the storable hypergolic-fuelled R-36 silo-launched missile led to the cancellation of the UR-200 in 1965.

Operators

Related developments

R-9 Desna The R-9 (NATO reporting name: SS-8 Sasin) was a two-stage IRBM of the Soviet Union, in service from 1964 to 1976. History Designed in 1959 and first tested in 1961, the R-9 was a great improvement over previous Soviet missile designs. The miss ...

Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (russian: Сергей Павлович Королёв, Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ kərɐˈlʲɵf, Ru-Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.ogg; ukr, Сергій Павлович Корольов, ...

* R-16 by Mikhail Yangel *

Universal Rocket The Universal Rocket or ''UR'' family of missiles and carrier rockets is a Russian, previously Soviet rocket family. Intended to allow the same technology to be used in all Soviet rockets, the UR is produced by the Khrunichev State Research and P ...

UR-100 The UR-100 (russian: УР-100) was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed and deployed by the Soviet Union from 1966 to 1996. UR () in its designation stood for Universal Rocket (russian: links=no, Универсальная Р� ...

"minor" missile in development set of ''UR-100..UR-200..UR-500'' line *

UR-500 Proton (Russian: Протон) (formal designation: UR-500) is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965. Modern versions of the launch system are sti ...

"major" missile in development set of ''UR-100..UR-200..UR-500'' line

References