All Questions
Tagged with history soviet-union
15
questions
38
votes
5
answers
7k
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Did Sputnik 1 tell us more than "beep"? What science was improved by information gained from its orbiting the Earth?
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite launched by humans to orbit the Earth.
This answer begins:
Sputnik had just one single job: Prove its existence by sending a simple "beep" ...
- 149k
25
votes
2
answers
4k
views
What caused the N1 to become a failure?
What were key factors that made the N1 the recipe for disaster it became for the USSR? Especially when the USSR was the Space King at the time?
- 539
9
votes
1
answer
923
views
Did the Soviet Union put an unmanned satellite in "very low orbit"above the Kármán line which used aerodynamic attitude control?
This interesting, archived page https://www.webcitation.org/618QHms8h?url=http://www.fai.org/astronautics/100km.asp which I found in this answer, says:
Later in the same decade (or very early in ...
- 149k
5
votes
0
answers
440
views
What radio frequencies were used by the Soviet space program circa 1961? ("Lost Cosmonaut" recording)
The recent Joe Scott video The Mysterious "Lost Cosmonaut" Recording | Random Thursday describes radio recording said to have been made by the Judica Cordiglia brothers from Italy in the early 1960's.
...
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10
votes
1
answer
434
views
Was Fidel Castro ever in a Soviet spacecraft?
I was looking at a Roscosmos news item Russian monitoring tools track the stage of the rocket that launched the module of the Chinese station about the reentering Long March 5B
This situation will ...
- 149k
8
votes
1
answer
476
views
What was the first Soviet spacecraft that could recharge its battery it each orbit? Where were the photovoltaic cells made?
Sputnik 1 (/ˈspʌtnɪk, ˈspʊtnɪk/; "Satellite-1", or "PS-1", Простейший Спутник-1 or Prosteyshiy Sputnik-1, "Elementary Satellite 1") was the first artificial Earth ...
- 149k
7
votes
3
answers
3k
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In what ways did the Soviet Union "observe the Apollo Moon landings closely"?
@DarkDust's comment says:
If the USSR had had just a tiny amount of doubt whether the landings were faked, they would have used that for propaganda. Loudly! They observed the landings closely and ...
- 149k
4
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Is there any truth to the claims of cosmonauts lost in space?
I've heard that during the space race era, many of the Soviet cosmonauts were lost in space. Or at least, such were the claims of some. So I wonder, is there any truth in these claims, or was that ...
- 231
33
votes
1
answer
6k
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How did the U.S.S.R manage to rotate the N-1 from horizontal to vertical?
The title says it all - but I heard that NASA considered horizontal integration for the Saturn V couldn't be considered, as lifting the rocket to a vertical position would require an immense ...
- 551
20
votes
1
answer
4k
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How was the cosmonaut of the Soviet moon mission supposed to get back in the return vehicle?
In the Soviet Moon mission, for which the ill fated N-1 launcher was built, we know that the cosmonaut responsible for landing on the moon was to transfer from the equivalent of the command module to ...
- 559
19
votes
8
answers
10k
views
What kept the Soviets from going to the Moon (before the US)?
I know that Saturn V's payload was 140 tons, about 20 times that of Soyuz. The Soviets did not have a functioning rocket with similar characteristics. But why? They had a head start in the space race ...
- 364
12
votes
1
answer
843
views
Was the R-7 the first two stage rocket of the Soviet Union?
The first US two stage rocket was bumper, a combination of a german V2 liquid fuel rocket with an US second stage.
The Soviet Union had the R-1 and R-2 based on the V-2.
In this list, the R-7 is ...
- 49.2k
6
votes
1
answer
492
views
What budgetary and technical impact did the N1 program's failure have on the Soviet Union's space program?
After the failure of the N1 program, what impact did this have on the budget for the space program of the Soviet Union?
What technical impacts did it have? For example, did other missions suffer ...
- 539
2
votes
1
answer
348
views
What was the first successful demonstration of a fuel cell in space?
Hydrogen fuel cells (together with batteries) were used for electrical power in the Apollo program, where it was recombined with oxygen on board to produce electricity.
Doing chemistry in practical ...
- 149k
1
vote
2
answers
255
views
Why were two simultaneous command transmissions interpreted by Kosmos 57 as an order to begin the descent?
This answer to Encryption in radio system points to the Wikipedia article Kosmos 57 which says:
The unmanned spacecraft was destroyed on its third orbit around Earth. Two ground control stations, ...
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