The RD-0214 (,

GRAU index The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of ...

: 8D811) is a

vernier thruster A vernier thruster is a rocket engine used on a spacecraft or launch vehicle for fine adjustments to the attitude or velocity. Depending on the design of a craft's maneuvering and stability systems, it may simply be a smaller thruster complement ...

rocket engine burning

unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (abbreviated as UDMH; also known as 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, heptyl or Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is primarily used as a rocket propellant. At room temperature, UDMH is a colorle ...

(UDMH) fuel with

dinitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

(N₂O₄) oxidizer in a

gas-generator cycle The gas-generator cycle, also referred to as the GG cycle or colloquially as an open cycle, is one of the most commonly used power cycles in bipropellant liquid rocket engines. Propellant is burned in a gas generator (analogous to, but distinct ...

. It has four nozzles that can each gimbal 45 degrees in plane to provide

thrust vectoring Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to Aircraft flight control system, control the Spacecra ...

control to the RD-0212 propulsion module of

Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

rocket's third stage. It is a revised version of the RD-0207 (, GRAU index: 8D67).

Development

When Chelomey's

OKB-52 NPO Mashinostroyeniya () is a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, Russia. During the Cold War it was responsible for several major weapons systems, including the UR-100N Intercontinental ballistic missile and the military Almaz space station ...

started their

UR-200 The UR-200 was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by Vladimir Chelomey's OKB-52 in the Soviet Union. It was known during the Cold War by the NATO reporting name SS-10 ''wiktionary:scrag, Scrag'' and internally by the GRAU ind ...

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

project, they requested S. A. Kosberg's OKB-154 to develop the propulsion. For the second stage, they used a single RD-0206, a variation of the first stage RD-0203, but required a vernier engine. To this end, the RD-0207 vernier engine was designed. It also included a heat exchanger to heat the pressurant gases for the second stage tank. While the UR-200 project was in direct competition to the R-36 and was cancelled in favor of the latter, it did have a few test launches and thus was a proven design. Then Chelomey moved his proposals to the super heavy ICBM UR-500 (8K82) and later to the Proton-K (8K82K). A heavy launch vehicle that could perform important missions for the Soviet moonshot. For this new missions, it would not need to comply with ICBM specification standards, but would need at least a third stage. For the third stage, the UR-200 second stage was adapted—with the same 4.1 m tanking as the first and second stages and the RD-0205 module with an RD-0206 and an RD-0207 vernier engine was given an overhaul. The new module—known as RD-0212—consisted of an RD-0213 and an RD-0214 vernier engine. Many reliability enhancements were done and much extra test firings were performed. Yet, even as of 2015 design issues were found to have caused failures.

History

The first launch test of the UR-200 was on November 5, 1963, and was unsuccessful. The second vehicle, launched on April 11, 1964, also failed. The final RD-0207 flight was on October 20, 1964. The first RD-0214 flight was on October 3, 1967. On September 15, 1968, the RD-0214 module launched the

Zond 5 Zond 5 () was a spacecraft of the Soviet Zond program. In September 1968 it became the first spaceship to travel to and circle the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory, the first Moon mission to include animals, and the first to return safely to Ea ...

around the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

on a

free return trajectory In orbital mechanics, a free-return trajectory is a trajectory of a spacecraft traveling away from a primary body (for example, the Earth) where gravity due to a secondary body (for example, the Moon) causes the spacecraft to return to the primar ...

, that sent the first alive organisms around the moon and back to Earth. On 19 May 1971 a Proton launched the Mars 2 probe to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. The orbiter was identical to the

Venera 9 Venera 9 (), manufacturer's designation: 4V-1 No. 660, was a Soviet uncrewed space mission to Venus. It consisted of an orbiter and a lander. It was launched on June 8, 1975, at 02:38:00 UTC and had a mass of . The orbiter was the first sp ...

bus, and the lander was the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars. On 8 June 1975 a Proton launched the

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

. It consisted of an orbiter based on the Mars 2 design, and a lander that sent the first pictures from the surface of Venus.

Versions

There are two basic versions of this engine: * RD-0207 (

GRAU The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of ...

Index: 8D67): A small gas generator rocket vernier engine using the same propellants as the RD-0206 and bundled with it in the

RD-0205 The RD-0210 (, GRAU index: 8D411K) is also known as the RD-465. It and its twin, the RD-0211, are rocket engines using unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) as oxidizer in an oxidizer rich staged combustio ...

propulsion module. It has four combustion chambers that can gimbal 45 degrees in a single plane and allow the

second stage to have vector control. * RD-0214 (

Index: 8D811): An evolution of the RD-0207 engine, used as vernier engine of the RD-0212 propulsion module along the RD-0213. It has four combustion chambers that can gimbal 45 degrees in a single plane and allow the Proton third stage to have vector control.

Modules

These engines are actually bundled into modules. The relevant modules and auxiliary engines are: * RD-0205 (

Index: 8D46): A module comprising an RD-0206 and an RD-0207 vernier engine. Propulsion of the UR-200 second stage. * RD-0212 (

Index: 8D49): Also known as the RD-473, it is a propulsion module comprising one RD-0213 and an RD-0214 vernier engine. Propulsion module of the third stage of the

rockets.

References

External links