«Soyuz» class Launch vehicles

Souz is the name of middle class 3 stage launch vehicles developed on the basis of R-7 launch vehicle with the third stage module added. Souz series launch vehicles has been used since 1963. The developer and manufacturer is Samara rocket space center Central assembly and constructions bureau Progress. More than 1800 rocket launches were facilitated by the space center and more than 350 in-house developed spacecrafts are set into the operational orbit. Soyuz was the only means of delivering cosmonauts to the long term orbital stations Salut and MIR. Soyuz launch vehicle is considered to be the most reliable in the world. At present rocket vehicles of this class deliver Russian cosmonauts and foreign astronauts, expendable supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.     

Above the Soyuz rocket scaled models you can see a pencil drawing portrait of Dmitri Iliych Kozlov a scientist and a constructor in the field of rocket space production. For 45 years Kozlov was one of the industry leaders and for many years he was the head of the samara rocket space center Progress. Long way back in 1958 on Korolev`s assignment Kozlov arrived to Kuibyshev for deployment of the R-7  full scale serial production line.      

  In our exposition   you can see Soyuz series 1:50 scaled models. They are Soyuz 2-1B and manned Soyuz FG. Soyuz 2-1B space rocket is launched at the Guiana Space Center in South America. Let’s have a close look at the construction of the rocket. The gross empty vehicle mass is 20 ton in full fueled state is 310 ton. In less than 9 min after the lift off the fuel is burnt and the payload is set in to the outer space. The apex of the rocket is a fairing. The height of the deflector is 14m. Its diameter is 4,11m.

Man controlled space rockets are equipped with the flight crew emergency escape system  for the case of emergency. Emergency escape system looks like  a bar at the top side of the rockets aerodynamic panel – it is a powerful gunpowder engine which carries away the landing module with the flight crew far away from the rocket in case of an accident. Thus  you can easily guess that our rocket in front of the museum is man-controlled.

The payload is installed under the deflectors. It can be a cargo ship or a manned spacecraft, space satellite or a combination of a booster plus spacecraft.