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The 1970s also saw the Soviet Union commission a long-term replacement for the UR-100. This led to the UR-100N series, a significantly redesigned missile five and a half meters (18 feet) longer and 50 centimeters (1.6 feet) wider than its predecessor, which could be seen as a new vehicle. UR-100N first flew in September 1972 and entered service in 1975. As well as being enlarged, the UR-100N design introduced new engines and added a small third stage to serve as a post-boost vehicle for the precise delivery of multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) and enhanced countermeasures against anti-ballistic-missile systems.<\/p>\n
UR-100NUTTKh represented a further upgrade over the UR-100N, with uprated engines, control systems and other modifications to increase survivability in the event of a first strike by the United States. UR-100NUTTKh made its first test flight in October 1977 and began to enter service in late 1979. By 1984 deployment of these missiles had reached 360, replacing the UR-100N. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed in 1991, limiting the number of missiles that the Soviet Union could field, and with the return of UR-100NUTTKh missiles deployed in Ukraine following the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia was left with a surplus.<\/p>\n
Despite their age, a small number of UR-100NUTTKh missiles remain in front-line service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, including several that are being re-equipped with the new Avangard hypersonic glider reentry vehicles.<\/p>\n
With a large stockpile of missiles, Russia began two programs to launch satellites on the UR-100NUTTKh: Rokot and Strela. The Strela rocket, which has flown three times \u2013 in 2003, 2013 and 2014 \u2013 was a refurbished but minimally-modified missile, which launched from a silo and used the UR-100\u2019s own post-boost vehicle to complete insertion of its payloads into low Earth orbit. Rokot represented a more advanced version, using the more capable Briz upper stage. Unlike Strela, Rokot could fly from surface launch pads as well as silos.<\/p>\n
The name Rokot comes from the Russian \u0420\u043e\u043a\u043e\u0442, meaning \u201crumble\u201d or \u201cboom\u201d. In non-English speaking European countries, the alternative romanization \u201cRockot\u201d is used instead, which has also come into use in English through organizations such as the German launch services company Eurockot, who marketed Rokot for commercial launches with western payloads. Rokot is built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Centre, a successor to Chelomei\u2019s design bureau.<\/p>\n
Rokot was originally intended as a boost vehicle for an anti-satellite weapons program, Naryad, with the initial version of the Briz upper stage \u2013 Briz-K \u2013 designed to help maneuver a warhead that could intercept satellites up to 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles, 22,000 nautical miles) above the Earth. Rokot made its first launch on 20 November 1990, a suborbital mission flown from a UR-100N silo at Site 131\/29 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome to test the performance of the rocket and its new Briz-K upper stage as part of the Naryad program. A second suborbital Naryad test was conducted thirteen months later.<\/p>\n
Astronomy
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On 26 December 1994 Rokot made its first orbital launch, carrying the Radio-ROSTO amateur radio satellite to low Earth orbit. Like the maiden flight, the second Naryad flight and Radio-ROSTO missions were also silo-launched from Baikonur, flying from Site 175\/58. No further Naryad launches were made after the 1991 test flight.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/NSF-2019-08-30-14-40-59-097.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRokot on a launch for ESA<\/p>\n
Despite the success of these initial launches, Rokot would not fly again for over five years. In this time a new surface launch pad was constructed at Site 133\/3 of Russia\u2019s northern Plesetsk Cosmodrome \u2013 a launch pad originally built for the Kosmos family of rockets. Site 133\/3 has been used for all Rokot launches since, including Friday\u2019s. Using a surface launch pad instead of a silo reduces the acoustic loads Rokot\u2019s payloads are exposed to at liftoff, making the rocket more suitable for launching complex satellites.<\/p>\n
Site 133 was originally built for the Kosmos-2I rocket, derived from the R-12 missile. Its single launch pad was designated 133\/1, with the launcher equipment codenamed Raduga \u2013 meaning Rainbow. Ninety Kosmos-2I vehicles were launched from the pad from March 1967 until June 1977. Eight years later the pad was reactivated for use by the Kosmos-3M rocket, a derivative of the R-14 missile. As part of this process, the pad was renumbered 133\/3 to reflect the presence of two pre-existing Kosmos-3M pads at the nearby Site 132. The first of thirty-eight Kosmos-3M launches from Site 133 took place in October 1985. After the last launch, in July 1994, work to convert the launch complex for Rokot began.<\/p>\n
In late 1999, a Rokot\/Briz-K was readied for the type\u2019s first launch from Plesetsk with the experimental RVSN-40 satellite aboard. During pre-launch testing the rocket\u2019s payload fairing was inadvertently separated, causing damage to the vehicle which led to the cancellation of its launch. RVSN-40 was later renamed Mozhayets 3 and launched aboard a Kosmos-3M rocket from Site 132.<\/p>\n
Subsequent Rokot launches would use the upgraded Briz-KM upper stage in place of the earlier Briz-K. This version of Briz was enlarged and strengthened so it did not need to be encapsulated within Rokot\u2019s payload fairing, allowing a larger fairing to be flown on top of the stage, with more room for the rocket\u2019s payload. This also formed the basis for the successful Briz-M upper stage, used on larger Proton and Angara rockets, which incorporates additional propellant drop tanks to support geostationary satellite launches.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-11-30-01_45_18-Window.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBriz-KM upper stage \u2013 via L2.<\/p>\n
The Rokot\/Briz-KM vehicle has only ever launched from the surface pad at Plesetsk. Its first flight, and the first Rokot mission to lift off from Plesetsk, took place on 16 May 2000 with SimSat-1 and SimSat-2. These payloads were mass simulators, mimicking a pair of Iridium communications satellites. Eurockot, one of a number of companies formed in the 1990s to market Russian rockets to western customers for commercial launches after the fall of the Soviet Union, had agreed a contract with Iridium for a number of launches to replenish the latter\u2019s constellation of low-orbit communications satellites. Ultimately Iridium\u2019s financial troubles meant that Rokot would only carry two operational Iridium satellites, on a single launch in 2002.<\/p>\n
The first functional payload launched aboard a Rokot was the joint US-German Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment (GRACE), which lifted off in March 2002. Three months later, Rokot flew its only Iridium mission which deployed the Iridium 97 and 98 satellites \u2013 the final pair of first-generation Iridium spacecraft and the last replenishment launch for the Iridium constellation until SpaceX began launching Iridium-NEXT satellites in January 2017.<\/p>\n
Rokot\u2019s next launch, in June 2003, carried another mass simulator, mocking up Monitor-E, a new type of Earth observation satellite that Khrunichev was developing. Leftover space aboard the rocket was also sold and eight small satellites were deployed into low Earth orbit by the Briz-KM. Among these were the first six examples of a new class of satellite, CubeSats. Built to a set of standard form factors, CubeSats were designed with common deployment mechanisms so specific equipment wouldn\u2019t need to be built and validated for each individual spacecraft. This was intended to drive down the cost of access to space for small-scale experiments. Hundreds of CubeSats have since followed these first six spacecraft, now flying on a multitude of rockets worldwide.<\/p>\n
Another 2003 Rokot launch saw Japan\u2019s SERVIS-1 technology demonstrator deployed. In August 2005 a Rokot deployed Khrunichev\u2019s first and only operational Monitor-E satellite. In October of the same year, while launching the European Space Agency\u2019s CryoSat spacecraft, a scientific satellite intended to monitor Earth\u2019s ice caps, Rokot failed to reach orbit. An investigation found that the vehicle\u2019s onboard computer had not commanded the second stage to shut down at the end of its planned burn, preventing the Briz-KM third stage from separating and performing its own planned burn. This was the first of two launch failures that occurred during Rokot\u2019s twenty-nine years of service, with the rocket also scoring one partial failure and thirty-one successes.<\/p>\n
In July 2006, Rokot returned to service with the launch of the South Korean Arirang-2 (KOMPSAT-2) satellite. The type made its first military launch in May 2008 with three Strela-3 communications satellites. Over the next ten years, Rokot was used for a mixture of military and commercial missions. Military launches have largely carried Strela-3 satellites and their successors, Rodnik (Strela-3M). These satellites typically launch in groups of three, although civilian Gonets-M satellites can be substituted for their military counterparts. In addition to the May 2008 Strela-3 launch, Rokot flew one mission with one Strela-3, one Rodnik and one Gonets-M, one mission with one Strela-3 and two Gonets-Ms and five launches with three Rodnik spacecraft. Four dedicated launches with trios of Gonets-M satellites \u2013 including Friday\u2019s launch \u2013 were also made.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n