“Electrical systems are on-line. Vehicle batteries are fully charged.”
“The gantry umbilicals are prepared for separation.”
“The payload status is within parameters, showing subcritical.”
“Gyros are now spinning.”
“The navigation computers are two-point-two minutes off the launch, but still within the launch window, Director. We can make corrections during the first orbit.”
“The valve sequence is aligned for ignition, high-speed turbopumps beginning to rotate,” the motor control technician reported.
They waited, expectant and tense.
Oberstev expected to have the telephone buzz at any moment, General Burov calling for a situation report.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:02:12.
“Launch Director, we have a malfunction.”
Oberstev recognized Piredenko’s voice.
“What is the nature of the malfunction?” the launch director asked.
“The primary motor control computer has gone down. It is self-protective.”
Oberstev leaned forward in his seat and looked down at the launch director, who had turned around and peered up at him.
“General, we are almost too late to abort.”
“Director Piredenko, do we still have the secondary computer operational?” Oberstev asked over his intercom.
“That is correct, General. Along with the tertiary. However, I still recommend abort…”
“Proceed with the launch,” Oberstev ordered.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:01:43.
Maj. Viatcheslav Mirakov maintained his banked turn at 500 knots. The twin Tumansky turbojets, each of which could produce over 12,000 kilograms of thrust, consumed fuel like sponges when the throttles were mishandled. The MiG-25 had an operational radius of only 1,450 kilometers.
Both aircraft were stripped of armament, flying ʻcleanʼ They were each equipped with video cameras and video transmitters, as well as the NATO-named ʻFox Fireʼ fire control radar. The radar had been modified by the addition of a rear-facing antenna in order to provide a full 360-degree sweep. The radar range was eighty-three kilometers, and the pilots would use it to follow the A2e.
Mirakov’s wingman orbited in a lazy oval four kilometers to Mirakov’s west.
When he heard the launch director announce one minute to ignition on his secondary radio, Mirakov depressed the transmit button on the inboard throttle handle. “Condor Two?”
“I am prepared, Condor One.”
“Take up a heading of one-one-zero degrees. Now.”
“Confirmed. One-one-zero.”
Mirakov rolled out of his bank as he came around to the compass heading.
The A2e was programmed to lift from the pad, then rotate to the east-southeast, climbing toward the rotation of the earth which assisted it in achieving escape velocity. With the solid-rocket boosters, the A2e would generate a total of nearly thirty million newtons of thrust. It would accelerate quickly, though Mirakov had been told that the thrust profile had been designed to keep acceleration loads at close to three gravities. The engineers did not want to put undue stresses on the payload component.
The launch profile called for the A2e to achieve an orbital velocity of 28,000 kilometers per hour in fourteen minutes. That was over twenty times the speed of sound, and seventeen times faster than the speed of the MiGs. Mirakov and his wingman would have the A2e on their cameras for less than four minutes.
“Ignition confirmed.”
The launch director’s voice was almost bored. He had done this many times before.
Mirakov shoved both of his throttles outboard and forward, engaging the afterburners. The sudden acceleration depressed his body into the parachute and survival pack cushions of his seat. As he eased the stick back until he had a sixty-degree climb, the positive G-forces increased. The skin of his face sagged.
“The vehicle has cleared the gantry tower.”
Several whoops of elation could be heard in the background.
Forty seconds later, Mirakov’s wingman said, “Condor One, I have a contact.”
“Affirmative, Two.”
The small radar screen emplaced in his instrument panel next to the centered video screen showed him three blips, those of his wingman, an aerial fuel tanker orbiting twenty kilometers to the south, and the A2e. The rocket had already passed through Mach 2 and achieved an altitude of 8.000meters. It would pass over his left shoulder within seconds.
“On track, on course. Velocity Mach two-point-three,ˮ a controller on the ground intoned.
Mirakov activated his nose camera. The screen flickered to life and showed him an unending panorama of hazy blue. Two green LEDs reported that the video recorders were turning.
His Mach readout indicated 2.7.
A glance at the radar screen.
He depressed the transmit button. “Two, I show target range at fifteen kilometers, closure rate thirty meters per minute and increasing.”
“Affirmed, One.”
Mirakov searched his rearview mirror and found the white plume erupting from a small black dot. As he watched, the dot grew into a soccer ball. It would pass over him by half a kilometer.
He eased the stick back to increase the angle of his climb.
“Closure rate about one hundred meters per minute,” Condor Two radioed.
The altimeter readout flickered. He was passing through 22,000 meters.
The rocket passed overhead like a shadow through life.
“On course, on track, velocity Mach four-point-nine,” the controller reported.
Again, he tugged back on the stick. The climb angle increased to 67 degrees. The image of the A2e appeared on his screen, and Mirakov immediately used the thumb wheel on the head of his control stick to zoom the telephoto lens to a magnification of fifteen. The rocket jumped in size until it filled his screen. The white-hot exhaust of the main engine and the two solid rocket boosters were almost blinding.
Mirakov hoped that those on the ground appreciated the view.
As the A2e increased the distance between them, Mirakov kept increasing the magnification until he had reached its maximum of twenty.
The rocket was quickly diminishing in size on the screen.
“Twenty-five thousand meters,” Condor Two said.
They had reached their maximum ceiling. His controls felt sloppy in the thin atmosphere. Without directional thrusters to augment the control surfaces, flying at such altitudes was extremely dangerous. Any abrupt deflection in the line of flight could cause the MiG to begin tumbling and spinning.
At this point in their chase flights, the MiGs went into a shallow descent, easing their passage back into thicker atmosphere, while the cameras began to nose up in order to keep the rocket in view.
“Initiate your recovery,” Mirakov ordered.
He eased the stick forward while simultaneously using another thumb wheel to angle the camera upward. With his left hand, he pulled the throttles out of afterburner.
Major Mirakov had already begun to think of this as yet another routine flight when something on the screen changed.
What was it?
The right booster exhaust seemed brighter than that of its twin, or of the main rocket motor.
There. It flared again.
“Launch Control,” Mirakov called on his secondary channel, “we have an anomaly.”
“Report it, Condor.”
Before he could depress the transmit stud, the A2e abruptly rolled on its longitudinal axis and nosed down, turning slightly to the north. The exhaust trail of the main engine winked out.
“Out of control,” a ground controller said. “We have lost altitude.”
“Main engine shut down,” another controller said.
“Jettison rocket boosters,” the launch controller said.