The Molniya (russian: Молния, meaning "lightning"),

GRAU The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated Russian acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the ...

Index 8K78, was a modification of the well-known

R-7 Semyorka The R-7 Semyorka (russian: link=no, Р-7 Семёрка), officially the GRAU index 8K71, was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War, and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1 ...

rocket and had four stages. The 8K78 resulted from a crash program by the Korolev Bureau to develop a booster for launching planetary probes. A larger third stage was added along with a fourth stage ( Blok L) that was designed to fire in-orbit to send the payload out of LEO. The basic R-7 core was also structurally strengthened and given more powerful engines. A rushed development produced multiple malfunctions of the upper stages, which led to its being replaced by the improved Molniya-M in 1964, but there were enough 8K78s left to continue flying them into 1967.The Soyuz Launch Vehicle: The Two Lives of an Engineering Triumph By Christian Lardier, Stefan Barensky, page 156 The Molniya also carried early Venera probes to

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

. Molniya (E6) was a minor revision adapted for launch of some Luna series space probes.

Characteristics

* Length: 43.440 m * Diameter: 10.300 m * Launch mass: 305,000 kg

References

1960 in spaceflight 1961 in spaceflight 1962 in spaceflight 1963 in spaceflight 1973 in spaceflight Space launch vehicles of the Soviet Union R-7 (rocket family) {{rocket-stub

Characteristics

See also

References