The Soviet Space Exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science – July 1990

When I was growing up in the 1970s, I was already an avid space enthusiast who tried to keep abreast of all the latest space missions. While there was plenty of information to be had about NASA’s various programs through the news media and especially literature and pictures I got directly from NASA, the Soviet space program was largely a mystery to me. I had the occasional news item which would appear in the newspapers or news magazine to rely on as well as brief mentions in my various space books and more detailed articles which appeared from time to time in Sky & Telescope, Science News and other magazines I read. But aside from these brief glimpses, details on the Soviet space program were hard to find.

For me, that all began to change once I entered college in the fall of 1980. I quickly discovered the weekly periodical Aviation Week & Space Technology which was one of the best places at the time to find news on the Soviet space program as well as detailed analyses. Other periodicals and my classmates’ interest in spaceflight further fueled my growing passion for the Soviet space program especially their crewed, lunar and planetary missions. I eventually special-ordered books on the subject by Nicholas Johnson, James Oberg and others which helped to fill in lots of details and identified many of the remaining mysteries.

Here I am, a 19 year-old college student, sitting in front of an H-1 engine during my first visit to Kennedy Space Center in July 1981. (A.J. LePage)

After I graduated college with my degree in physics, I continued digging into the Soviet space program in my free time learning all that I could. By the late 1980s, I joined an informal study group of like-minded Soviet space enthusiasts in the Boston area called Krasnaya Orbita (“Red Orbit”, in Russian) where we shared information and the results of our analyses projects. With the start of Glasnost in 1986, even more information about the Soviet space program became available prompting me to start writing about the subject in 1990 to share what I had learned with others (see “The Future that Never Came: Mars 94”).

Around the same time I published my first article, I found out that the Boston Museum of Science was going to host an exhibit of Soviet space hardware in the summer of 1990. This was just too good of an opportunity to pass up and I made a couple of visits to see it in July with my friend, Larry Klaes (who was a fellow space writer, member of Krasnaya Orbita as well as the editor who got me my start in freelance writing). Not only did we get to talk to some of the Soviet engineers who accompanied the exhibit, but we photographed much of the hardware and its details in order to glean as much information as possible from this opportunity. What follows are a selection of my photographs from that exhibit thirty years ago.

Launch Vehicles & Engines

One of the first displays which caught my attention in July 1990 was an automated display model of how a Soyuz rocket was erected on its pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In addition to my interest stemming from model railroading, it gave me an opportunity to see the details of how this process worked from multiple angles.

Model of a Soyuz launch vehicle that was part of an animated display. (A.J. LePage)

A montage of photos of an animated display showing the erection of a Soyuz launch vehicle on its pad. Click on image to enlarge. (A.J. LePage)

In addition to display models of various Soviet launch vehicles, the exhibit also included displays of some rocket engines. The RD-253, which was the largest on display, was used on the first stage of the largest operational Soviet launch vehicle, the Proton-K. Burning the hypergolic propellants UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide, each of the six RD-253 engines generated 1,630 kilonewtons of thrust.

A display model of the RD-253 engine used in the first stage of the Proton-K launch vehicle. (A.J. LePage)

Another interesting engine (which I had not heard about at that time) was the RD-301. This experimental engine burned the exotic propellant combination of liquid ammonia and highly reactive liquid fluorine to generate 97 kilonewtons of thrust with an I_SP of 400 seconds – comparable to the performance of American cryogenic engines. Originally developed to serve as the propulsion system of a high-energy Proton-K4H upper stage, the project was shelved in 1977.

A model of the experimental RD-301 engine which burned liquid ammonia and liquid fluorine. (A.J. LePage)

Crewed Spaceflight

One of the eye-opening treats of the exhibit for me was a display of the Soyuz descent module. What struck me was how small the interior volume of this module was especially compared to the Apollo spacecraft which I had already seen on display (including an interactive display at the Boston Museum of Science almost 20 years earlier – see “Plans for a Command Module of My Own”). Also included in the display was not only a dummy in a Sokol spacesuit in a Soyuz seat, but an empty seat which exhibit-goers could sit in. Needless to say, this seat was a very tight fit for my 6’1” frame making me wonder how I would fare even a short trip in a Soyuz.

A display of the Soyuz descent module. In front is a dummy in a Soyuz seat wearing a Sokol spacesuit. (A.J. LePage)

A peek inside the Soyuz descent module. (A.J. LePage)

Another view of the Soyuz interior showing the second seat position. (A.J. LePage)

Other items on display included Soviet space suits. One was the Sokol space suit used by cosmonauts flying Soyuz while another was a Berkut suit of the type used by Alexei Leonov during the first EVA in March 1965 (see “The Mission of Voskhod 2”).

Display of the Soviet Berkut spacesuit used for the Voskhod 2 EVA (left) and the Sokol worn by cosmonauts on the Soyuz. (A.J. LePage)

Another interesting display was an Orlan EVA suit and the SPK – the Soviet equivalent of NASA’s Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). The SPK was carried on the then-new Mir space station and had been tested during a pair of EVAs in 1990.

A view of a dummy wearing an Orlan EVA suit with an SVK manned maneuvering unit tested on Mir in 1990. (A.J. LePage)

A face-on, closeup of the Orlan and SVK. (A.J. LePage)

Lunar & Planetary Missions

By far, the part of the display that was of greatest interest to me in this 1990 exhibit was the displays of Soviet lunar and planetary hardware. After seeing models of American lunar and planetary spacecraft during the previous decade, I was struck by the size of these Soviet spacecraft. Prominently displayed was a model of the Lunokhod 2 lunar rover which explored LeMonnier Crater in 1973. It would be years later that I discovered that this rover also carried an astrophotometer to assess the possibility that the lunar surface would be a suitable site for an observatory (see “The Original Lunar Observatories”).

A display of the Lunokhod 2 lunar rover. (A.J. LePage)

A rear view of the Lunkohod 2 lunar rover. (A.J. LePage)

One of the biggest thrills of the exhibit for me was the display of hardware from the Luna 24 mission – the last Soviet lunar sample return mission from August 1976 (see “The Last Lunar Sample Return Mission”). With a wink of consent from one of the Soviet engineers minding the exhibit, I actually got to briefly touch the actual return capsule of the E-8-5M Luna 24 mission. Also on display was an engineering model of the LB-9 drill used to secure a two-meter long core sample of the lunar surface and the mechanism used to stow it in a return container. It would be two years before I got to see an engineering model of the entire E-8-5M spacecraft on display at the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio.

The actual Luna 24 return capsule on display. (A.J. LePage)

An engineering model of the KB-9 lunar drill used by the E-8-5M Luna 24 to secure a two-meter long core sample for return to Earth. (A.J. LePage)

A closeup of the head of the KB-9 lunar drill. (A.J. LePage)

The sample container used by the E-8-5M return capsule. (A.J. LePage)

A display of the Soviet E-8-5M sample return spacecraft in July 1992 at the Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio. (A.J. LePage)

As impressed as I was with the size of some of the Soviet space hardware, I was somewhat surprised by the simplicity and small size of the one-meter diameter Venera 7 lander which landed on the surface of Venus in December 1970 (see “Venera 7: The First Landing on Another Planet“).

A model of the Venera 7 descent capsule which landed on Venus in December 1970. (A.J. LePage)

A closeup of the top of the Venera 7 lander. (A.J. LePage)

Much larger and more impressive was the display of a VEGA spacecraft. The Soviet Union and an international collaboration of scientists flew a pair of VEGA spacecraft to explore Venus using an advanced lander and a long-lived balloon payload when they arrived in June 1985. Following their flyby of Venus, the VEGA spacecraft went on to explore Comet Halley in March 1986 using an array of instruments including a suite carried on a pointable platform (see “The Missions to Comet Halley”).

A model of the Soviet VEGA spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

A cutaway view of the VEGA descent capsule showing the Venus lander tucked inside. (A.J. LePage)

A view of the Venus balloon payload carried by the VEGA spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

Closeup view of VEGA’s pointable platform carrying instruments to study Comet Halley. (A.J. LePage)

Probably the largest spacecraft on display at the 1990 Soviet Space Exhibit was an engineering model of the Phobos spacecraft. A pair of this new generation of planetary spacecraft was launched just two years earlier in July 1988 with the goal of entering orbit around Mars and eventually rendezvousing with the Martian moon, Phobos. Unfortunately, contact with Phobos 1 was lost that September because of a faulty command from ground controllers (see “A Brief History of Planetary Orbit Insertion Failures”). While Phobos 2 made it to Mars, contact was lost in March 1989 just days before its scheduled encounter with the Martian moon. Despite the problems, the design was expected to be used in the Mars 94 mission then under development (see “The Future that Never Came: Mars 94”) while its propulsion system would serve as the basis of the Fregat upper stage.

A model of the Soviet Phobos spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

A closeup of the core of the Phobos spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

A closeup of the propulsion module of the Phobos spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

Science Missions

Wrapping up what I saw at the 1990 Soviet Space Exhibit were some unmanned science satellites. One of these was an engineering model of the International Astrophysical Observatory Granat based on the highly successful 4V Venera spacecraft. A follow on mission to the highly successful Astron space telescope (see “Astron: Venera Turned Space Telescope”), Granat had been launched a few months earlier in December 1989 carrying a suite of Soviet, French and Dutch instruments to study astronomical X-ray sources.

A model of the International Astrophysical Observatory Granat which was based on the successful Soviet Venera spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

Another piece of hardware was a model of the Vostok-based Bion spacecraft used to fly biological experiments in orbit including some supplied by NASA. While configured somewhat differently from the Vostok, it gave me a good sense of the size of this long-lived spacecraft design especially compared to NASA’s Mercury (see “Vostok’s Legacy”).

A model of the Vostok-based Bion spacecraft. (A.J. LePage)

Follow Drew Ex Machina on Facebook.

Related Reading

“Plans for a Command Module of My Own”, Drew Ex Machina, May 31, 2014 [Post]

“The Mission of Voskhod 2”, Drew Ex Machina, March 18, 2015 [Post]

“The Original Lunar Observatories”, Drew Ex Machina, August 21, 2014 [Post]

“The Last Lunar Sample Return Mission”, Drew Ex Machina, August 18, 2016 [Post]

“The Missions to Comet Halley”, Drew Ex Machina, March 6, 2016 [Post]

“A Brief History of Planetary Orbit Insertion Failures”, Drew Ex Machina, February 13, 2010 [Post]

“The Future that Never Came: Mars 94”, Drew Ex Machina, March 1, 2015 [Post]

“Astron: Venera Turned Space Telescope”, Drew Ex Machina, January 7, 2016 [Post]

“Vostok’s Legacy”, Drew Ex Machina, April 12, 2015 [Post]