Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105

MiG-105
MiG 105-11 test vehicle at the Central Air Force Museum.[1]
Role Test vehicle
National origin Soviet Union
Manufacturer Mikoyan
First flight 1976
Status Cancelled
Primary user Soviet Air Forces

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105 part of a programme known as the Spiral (aerospace system), was a manned test vehicle to explore low-speed handling and landing.[2] It was a visible result of a Soviet project to create an orbital spaceplane. This was originally conceived in response to the American Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military space project and may have been influenced by contemporary manned lifting body research being conducted by NASA's Flight Research Center in California, USA. The MiG 105 was nicknamed "Lapot" Russian: лапоть, or bast shoe (the word is also used as a slang for "shoe"), for the shape of its nose.

Development

The program was also known as EPOS (Russian acronym for Experimental Passenger Orbital Aircraft). Work on this project finally began in 1965, two years after Dyna-Soar's cancellation. The project was halted in 1969, to be briefly resurrected in 1974 in response to the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. The test vehicle made its first subsonic free-flight test in 1976, taking off under its own power from an old airstrip near Moscow. It was flown by pilot Aviard G. Fastovets to the Zhukovskii flight test center, a distance of 30.5 kilometres (19.0 mi). Flight tests, totaling eight in all, continued sporadically until 1978. The actual space plane project was cancelled when the decision was made to instead proceed with the Buran project. The MiG test vehicle itself still exists and is currently on display at the Monino Air Force Museum in Russia.

Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy was the leader of the Spiral development programme.

Differences between Dyna-Soar and Spiral

Although having basically the same mission, Dyna-Soar and Spiral were radically different vehicles. For example:

Pilots

Gherman Titov, the second cosmonaut and the main test pilot of the MiG-105.

A cosmonaut training group for pilots assigned to fly this vehicle was formed in the early 1960s. It went through many changes and was eventually dissolved entirely. Known members included:

BOR

The БОР (Russian: Беспилотный Орбитальный Ракетоплан, Bespilotnyi Orbital'nyi Raketoplan, "Unpiloted Orbital Rocketplane"). Another spacecraft to use the Spiral design was the BOR series, unmanned sub-scale reentry test vehicles. American analogs X-23 PRIME and ASSET. Several of these craft have been preserved in aerospace museums around the world.

Image Type Launch date Usage Current status
BOR-1 15.07.1969 Flight test, the experimental 1:3 scale model.
Burned in the atmosphere at a height of about 60–70 km at a speed 8 000 mph (13 000 km/h). Was deployed at an altitude 328,083 ft (100 km) by 11K65
Burned (planned).
BOR-2 1969–1972 Sub-scale model of the Spiral space plane. four launches. NPO Molniya, Moscow
BOR-3 1973–1974 Sub-scale model of the Spiral space plane. two launches.
1. Destruction of the nose fairings after launch at a height of about five km (speed 0.94 Mach).
2. Flight program is fully implemented. Crashed on landing (Parachute failure)
Crashed.
BOR-4 1980–1984 Sub-scale model of the Spiral space plane. four launches and two unconfirmed NPO Molniya, Moscow
BOR-5 1984–1988 Flight tests, the experimental sub-scale base model. five launches. Different from Spiral spaceplane shape, data was also used in the Buran project. Technik Museum Speyer, Germany
Museum in Monino, Russia
BOR-6 Sub-scale model of the Spiral space plane NPO Molniya, Moscow

Operators

 Soviet Union

Specifications (MiG 105-11)

Data from Soviet X-planes; Yefim Gordon, Bill Gunston

General characteristics

Performance

See also

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

References

  1. Soviet X-planes; Yefim Gordon, Bill Gunston
  2. Soviet X-planes; Yefim Gordon, Bill Gunston
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