The Most Launched Rocket - A History Of The R-7

Video from the channel Scott Manley about R-7 Semyorka, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 13:37. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

An overview of the R-7 family marking the 60th anniversary of Sputnik 1, launched on 4 October 1957. The video follows its journey from intercontinental missile to the most-used orbital launcher, which at the time of publication was still resupplying the International Space Station.

Development began in 1953 under Sergei Korolev, as a missile able to carry 3,000 kg over more than 8,000 km. Testing started in 1957 at what would become the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The first launch, on 15 May, failed: a fire in the tail section shut down the engines at 98 s. The first successful flight came on 21 August, although the payload broke up on reentry. Without a warhead or guidance package, the mass dropped to about 267 t and the rocket put into orbit Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2 with Laika and, in May 1958, Sputnik 3, the former "Object D".

Fully fuelled it weighed 280 t and measured 34 m. It carried four RD-107 boosters, each with two steerable verniers, and a central RD-108 with four. All burned liquid oxygen and kerosene, designed by Valentin Glushko, with four chambers fed by a single turbopump driven by peroxide. At around 100 s the boosters separated, forming the "Korolev cross". The version with the RD-105 third stage launched Luna 1, 2 and 3; the Vostok, with the RD-109, carried Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Then came the Molniya, the Voskhod, with the first three-cosmonaut flight and Alexei Leonov's spacewalk, and in November 1966 the Soyuz, whose first crewed flight cost Vladimir Komarov his life. The Soyuz-U flew from 1973 and totalled 765 launches by February 2017. It was followed by the Soyuz-FG and the Soyuz-2 series, with digital guidance: 7 t of payload for the 2.1a and 8.2 t for the 2.1b, also flying from Kourou from 2011. It closes with the Soyuz-2.1v, without boosters and with an NK-33 engine.