The Angara finally flew

The project, which has been under development for 20 years, our space unfinished building, has finally reached test launches. A lot of time passed, the Zenit rocket with the ears turned into a whole family of light A-1.2, medium A-3, heavy A-5 and possible A-7. The prototype of the first stage flied three times as the first stage of the South Korean KSLV-1. And today, July 9, 2014, the first launch of the light A-1.2 PP (first launch) took place.

A bit about design and concept

The Angara launch vehicle is a whole family of missiles built on a modular basis. The use of a different number of universal booster modules (URM) and a universal launch for all rocket modifications should increase convenience and reliability, as well as reduce the cost of putting a kilogram into orbit. Light "Angara-1.2" is intended to replace the conversion of light rockets "Rokot", "Arrow". In this case, one URM-1 in the first stage and one URM-2 in the second stage are used. The average Angara A-3 consists of three URM-1 blocks that form the first and second stages, as well as the URM-2 as 3 stages with the possibility of installing an additional accelerating block. The Angara A-3 can bring 15 tons into a low orbit and is comparable to the Zenith. The heavy A-5 Angara uses five URM-1s at the first and second steps, can bring to a low orbit 25,

Big job

We must not forget how much work was done before the rocket flew. Be sure to go and see the full gallery of photos from various test works. Here I will briefly quote a photo story:
2008


2009

2010

2012

Flight plan

According to the plan of the first test launch, the rocket should make a suborbital flight and deliver to Kamchatka a dimensional-weight model of the payload.

First try

The first launch attempt took place on June 27, but about a minute before the launch (different numbers were called), the pre-launch countdown was stopped due to the operation of the automatic rocket condition monitoring system - the oxidizer line drain valve did not close:

The exact time was not shown in the photo, but the outward appearance looked just so - continued to bleed liquid oxygen.

The rocket was removed from the launch, taken to the MIC, corrected the faulty valve (it was lucky that it did not have to be replaced entirely, otherwise the rocket would have to be brought back to the factory, and this is a delayed launch for a month). On July 8, the rocket was brought back to the launch and the launch was scheduled for July 9.

Second attempt

The second attempt took place today, July 9, in an atmosphere of increased secrecy. The rocket launched at 16:00 Moscow time, this was just announced. The end of the flight is approximately 16:21. We are waiting for photos and videos.

UPD : On "Cosmonautics News" there is information about the successful "hit" in Kamchatka. Hurrah!

UPD : There is a video:


UPD : And here the photos appeared - Denis Efremov and the Ministry of Defense:



UPD : There are many more photos at http://netwind.livejournal.com/59680.html .