NEW 'Polyus' space battlestar images

Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510

This was the bird that the Soviets military built and planned
to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the
rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.

Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would
likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race
with potentially dreadful consequences.

In article ,
"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510


VERY cool! Thanks for that link and info, JimO.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
~ Robert A. Heinlein
http://www.angryherb.net

"Jim Oberg" wrote in news:%ILnd.12888$KQ2.4335
@fe2.texas.rr.com:

Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510

This was the bird that the Soviets military built and planned
to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the
rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.

Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would
likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race
with potentially dreadful consequences.



"MIR-2"?

What irony.

--Damon

In message
"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510

This was the bird that the Soviets military built and planned
to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the
rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.

And as some of the comments on the page say, a lot of those photos,
especially the one with the Energia at 45 degrees, could have come
straight out of a Thunderbirds episode.

Anthony

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2004 13:20:49 -0600 schrieb "Damon Hill":

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510
"MIR-2"?
What irony.

Yep - besides the fact, that I already knew a bit of Poljus/Skif
history and I actually owe a 1:288 scale model of an Energia-Buran
stack with the choice to attach Poljus instead of Buran as payload
(just besides a same scaled Shuttle stack for comparison) - but I saw
for the first time in these images, that 'MIR-2' and 'Poljus' were
painted on the same payload simultaneously. Until now I always thought
there was only the 'Poljus' lettering painted on its side, and that a
similar payload container was supposed to deliver somewhen the MIR-2
blocks to orbit. It seems, that I will have to redo my Poljus decals.
Or is it possible, that some of the photos show simply a never
launched facility checkout vehicle we all didn't know about until now?

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
"Abusus non tollit usum" - Latin: Abuse is no argument against proper use.

mailto: http://zili.de

In article ,
says...
Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510

This was the bird that the Soviets military built and planned
to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the
rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.

Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would
likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race
with potentially dreadful consequences.



Glad its not just me who hadn't seen some of those photos
before..thought I may have been a bit out of touch. I'm the poster
called 'KDF' on that page. Its a nice site to lurk on and find neato
stuff..unfortunately there's alot of name calling by rabid teenage
'patriots' in many of the threads.

K

Jim those pictures are incredible!
No doubt they will be on Encyclopedia Astronautica soon.

Matthew Ota

Jim Oberg wrote:
Just got this alert from a friend -- a LOT
of unpublished Polyus images at
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=30510

This was the bird that the Soviets military built and planned
to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the
rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.

Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would
likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race
with potentially dreadful consequences.

Jim Oberg wrote:

Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.



A description of what went wrong can be found he
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/polyus.htm
Polyus was a rush job, and they gave it faulty software, and so:

"Because of acceleration stresses the original flight plan called for
the Polyus platform to ride back-end first under and in the wake of the
core stage of the Energia rocket as it passed through the Phase of
Maximum Dynamic Stress after launch. Since the engines for orbital
insertion would then be in the nose it would be necessary for Polyus to
yaw 180 degrees and then roll 90 degrees before they could be fired and
Polyus placed in its working orbit. When the platform was finally
launched on 15 May, 1987, the Polyus performed a 180 degree yaw turn and
then continued the turn through to 360 degrees. Polyus then rolled and
fired its orbital insertion engines, which caused it to de-orbit into
the South Pacific.

Polyus's failure to achieve working orbit was caused by a faulty
inertial guidance sensor. In the rush of construction an already built
sensor had been stripped from an existing Cosmos spacecraft and then
been inadequately tested, as the Polyus mock-up had been shipped to
Baikonur by the time the test equipment arrived at the Krunichev
Factory. Those responsible for the failure were immediately fired or
demoted."

Pat

"Jim Oberg" wrote in message ...
Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would
likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race
with potentially dreadful consequences.

Not bloody likely.

What's more likely that if it did gone up into orbit, the U.S.S.R.
will have the upper hand of military in orbit and there's less chance
of the U.S.S.R. reforming into the C.I.S..

What's also more likely that there's also the chance the U.S.A. and
the U.S.S.R. will cooperate in building up military in orbit, of
course, this assuming that both countries are willing to rebel against
their common master and officialy annouced their cooperation with
world. Considering the last time it almost happen, Kennedy was
assasinated and Kruschev was removed from power.

Then again, maybe the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. cooperation might be the
'military race with potentially dreadful consequences' that some
refered to.

In article ,
says...
Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the
orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

That would have been a *very* expensive demonstration of, well, I really
don't know what. Forgive my ignorance, but why use an expensive launcher
to place an expensive Deathstar into orbit only to take it out of orbit?
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier