The Buran cruise missile, designation RSS-40, was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

intercontinental cruise missile by Myasishchev capable of carrying a 3,500 kg hydrogen bomb payload. The project was canceled before flight tests began. It is unrelated to the later Buran reusable orbiter.

Development

The project was authorized on 20 May 1954, parallel to the development of the

Burya The ''Burya'' ("Storm" in Russian; russian: Буря) was a supersonic, intercontinental cruise missile, developed by the Lavochkin design bureau (chief designer Naum Semyonovich Chernyakov) under designation La-350 from 1954 until the program can ...

missile. The development however, began in April 1953 as a rocket-aircraft system by Myasishchev OKB with internal designation M-40. The project was canceled in November 1957, when two prototypes were just ready for flight testing, in favor of the R-7 Semyorka, since ICBMs were considered unstoppable. Like the Burya, the Buran consisted of two stages, the

booster rocket A booster rocket (or engine) is either the first stage of a multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and payload capabil ...

s designated M-41, and the cruise missile stage designated M-42.

Specifications

General characteristics

*Function: Nuclear cruise missile *Launch mass: 125000 kg *Total length: 24.0 m *Launch platform: Launch pad *Status: Canceled before first flight tests

Launch vehicle (M-41)

*Engine: 4× RD-213 *Thrust: 4× 55 t *Length: 19.1 m *Diameter: 1.20 m *Oxidizer:

Liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an app ...

*Combustible:

Kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

Cruise missile (M-42)

*Engine: 1× RD-020 ramjet *Speed : Mach 3.1–3.2 *Range: 8,500 km *Flight altitude: 18–20 km *Warhead:

thermonuclear Thermonuclear fusion is the process of atomic nuclei combining or “fusing” using high temperatures to drive them close enough together for this to become possible. There are two forms of thermonuclear fusion: ''uncontrolled'', in which the re ...

, 3500 kg *Length: 23.3 m *Diameter: 2.40 m *Wing span: 11.6 m *Wing area: 98 m²

Comparable missiles

SM-62 Snark The Northrop SM-62 Snark is an early-model intercontinental range ground-launched cruise missile that could carry a W39 thermonuclear warhead. The Snark was deployed by the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command from 1958 through 1961 ...

SM-64 Navaho The North American SM-64 Navaho was a supersonic intercontinental cruise missile project built by North American Aviation (NAA). The final design was capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the USSR from bases within the US, while cruising at ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buran (Missile) RSS-040