Universal Rocket

The Universal Rocket or UR family of

UR-100

The UR-100 and its variants (e.g. UR-100N) were the standard small

The UR-200 was intended to be a larger

The UR-700 was

Superficially, the UR-700 was of the well-known design of Soviet launchers with a central core stack and lateral strap-on boosters. But one distinguishing feature was that the engines of the first stage were cross-fed with fuel and oxidizer from the tanks of the strap-on boosters during the initial flight phase. This meant that when the boosters were spent and jettisoned, the central stack still flew with full tanks, thus reducing dead weight and increasing a possible payload.[7]

A nuclear variant known as the UR-700A was also designed to have a much larger payload capacity of 750t (1,500,000 lb) to LEO.^[8]

UR-900

The UR-900 was the ultimate Universal Rocket application, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle for crewed expeditions to other planets, especially Mars. Proposed in 1969, it would have had 15 RD-270 modules in the first and second stages, and the third and fourth stages were based on those of the UR-500. The UR-900 would have stood 90 metres (295 ft) tall, had a liftoff thrust of 94,000 kN (21,132,000 lbf), and be able to place 240 tons into low Earth orbit. Like the UR-700, it remained a paper project only.^[9]

See also

• List of space launch system designs
• Anatoliy Daron

References