Page 32 - january

PROFESSIONAL ADVICE

Having received the order to launch, the "nuclear
train" stops and fixes itself on the railway track. A
special device rises above the train, which takes the
contact network aside. At this time, a flight mission
with the specified coordinates of the launch site and
the target is already loaded into the missile warheads.
The swing roofs of the cars, in which the missiles are
in their transport and launch containers (TLC), move to
the side. Powerful jacks installation raise the chamber
to a vertical position. Having received the command to
launch, the rocket is thrown out of the container 20 -
30 m by a powder pressure accumulator, the correction
Fig. 3. Wagon - launcher.
impulses take it slightly away from the launcher, and
then the main engine is turned on, which, with a roar, carries the Molodets missile into the sky,
leaving behind a thick a plume of smoke typical of solid-propellant rockets.
The rocket has an original folding nose fairing. This solution was used to reduce the
length of the rocket and its placement in the car. The missile is 22.6 meters long. Missiles could
be launched from any point on the route. The launch algorithm is as follows: the train stops,
a special device pulls aside and short-circuits the contact network to the ground, the launch
container takes a vertical position. After this, a mortar launch of the rocket can be carried out.
Already in the air, the rocket deflects with the help of a powder accelerator and only after that
the main engine is started. The deflection of the rocket made it possible to divert the jet of the
main engine from the launch complex and the railway track, avoiding their damage. The time
for all these operations from receiving a command from the General Staff to launching a rocket
was up to three minutes.
The 15P761 launcher was developed at the Design Bureau for Special Engineering under
the leadership of the chief designer A.F. Utkin. Based on a four-carriage eight-axle car with a
carrying capacity of 135 tons. The transport and launch
container (TLC) is equipped with a temperature control
system and automatic rocket launch. The lifting of the
TLC to the vertical position is carried out by a pneumatic
drive using a PAD. The launcher car is equipped with
a hydraulically operated opening roof and a device for
the overhead line outlet. Even a decrease in the mass
of the rocket by 1.5 tons in comparison with the mine
version did not allow keeping within the permissible
axial load on the track. To solve this problem, special
“unloading” devices were used, redistributing part of
the weight to neighboring cars. The designers had to
solve several puzzling problems at once related to the Fig. 4. The car - the launcher is equipped with an
opening roof.

32 Stanochniy park