The R-7 Semyorka

Assembled from 16 blocks · 1 evidence · 9 related

1. Story
2. The Soviet missile designed by Sergei Korolev's bureau that was simultaneously the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile and the world's first orbital launch vehicle, and whose descendants are still flying. It first flew successfully in August 1957 and placed Sputnik 1 in orbit that October. As a weapon it was close to useless: it burned liquid oxygen and kerosene, took many hours to prepare, could not be kept fuelled and ready, and needed an enormous fixed launch complex, so only a handful were ever deployed in a military role. As a demonstration it was decisive, and the two roles cannot be separated — the same performance that lifts a satellite into orbit will carry a warhead between continents, which is precisely what the world understood in October 1957. Its lasting significance is as a launcher: successively modified, the R-7 family became the Vostok, Voskhod and Soyuz rockets, which is why a 1957 missile design is still the basis of crewed launches to orbit.
3. Knowledge
4. The intercontinental ballistic missile
5. The R-7 Semyorka
6. Connections
7. The intercontinental ballistic missile
8. The R-7 completes a successful full-range flight
9. Sputnik 1 is launched
10. Mutual assured destruction
11. Second-strike survivability
12. The R-7 Semyorka
13. The R-7 completes a successful full-range flight
14. Sputnik 1 is launched
15. Evidence
16. Named as the source class for the Sputnik launch date, the R-7 as both first ICBM and first orbital launcher, and the American institutional response. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted; the satellite's mass, orbital parameters and transmitter frequencies are deliberately not quoted in this pack for that reason.