The R-56 were five proposed rockets developed by the OKB-586 design bureau under

Mikhail Yangel Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel (russian: Михаил Кузьмич Янгель; 7 November 1911 – 25 October 1971), was a Soviet engineer born in Irkutsk who was the leading designer in the missile program of the former Soviet Union. Biography ...

. No formal terms for the five different designs have been discovered resulting in Bart Hendrickx writing in the Journal of the

British Interplanetary Society The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration. Stru ...

referring to the initial two designs as the Small and Big versions. Hendrickx referred to the later three designs as “Monoblock”, “first polyblock” (similar to the Big R-56) and “second polyblock” (similar to the Small R-56). The monoblock version was considered for use in the Soviet lunar program.

History

The idea for the R-56 seems to have comes from a desire to build a missile that could carry

Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba () ( code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. Overall, the Soviet physicist Andrei Sa ...

type nuclear weapons. By February 1962 the concept was described in a presentation to

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 ...

as being an

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...

suitable for 50 tonne weapons as well as being able to launch space stations. Formal design work, initially mainly focusing on the small R-56, took place between April 1962 and June 1964. By this point the R-56 was being treated almost entirely as a space launcher although some work was done exploring its potential as a

Multiple reentry vehicle A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...

carrier. The designs at this stage were meant to use the

RD-253 The RD-253 ( russian: italic=yes, Раке́тный дви́гатель 253 , ''Rocket Engine 253'') and its later variants, the RD-275 and RD-275M, are liquid-propellant rocket engines developed in the Soviet Union by Energomash. The engines a ...

engine. In August 1963 it was decided that the Small R-56 has too small a payload capacity and three new designs (“Monoblock”, “first polyblock” and “second polyblock”) using were produced with the monoblock being selected for further development. It was designed to be used in both two and four stage versions depending on the mission profile: two for

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 ...

, four for geostationary and beyond. In its 4-stage version it was 67.8 m high. It was planned to transport the rocket to its launch site by sea. The R-56 program was formally ended on 19 June 1964 with the stated purpose of focusing on the N-1 Rocket design.

Proposed uses

Earth orbit

It was suggested that the R-56 be used to place heavy (~40 tonne) military satellites into low Earth orbit as well as six tonne satellites into geostationary orbit.

Lunar missions

Proposed lunar missions included lunar satellites for photographic surveys of the Moon and a crewed flight around the Moon. The possibility of using the R-56 for crewed lunar landings (perhaps using a pair of launches to assemble the craft in low Earth orbit) was tentatively considered.

Engine

The rockets were designed to use the

as their main engine. In late 1962 it was suggested that the rocket switch to the more powerful

RD-270 RD-270 (russian: Раке́тный дви́гатель 270, Rocket Engine 270, 8D420) was a single-chamber liquid-bipropellant rocket engine designed by Energomash (USSR) in 1960–1970. It was to be used on the first stages of proposed heavy ...

. While this was never formally adopted the idea remained under consideration.

Model

A model of the R-56 survived in the collection of the

Yuzhnoye Design Office Pivdenne Design Office ( uk, Державне конструкторське бюро «Південне» ім. М. К. Янгеля , lit=State design bureau "Southern", named after M. K. Yangel, translit=Derzhavne konstruktors ...

References

{{reflist Rockets and missiles