THE RLA ROCKET FAMILY

Even as officials were still pondering over the need to respond to the Space Shuttle, specialists were already busy figuring out what the Soviet equivalent should look like. Glushko had not come to NPO Energiya empty-handed. He and his engineers at Energomash had devised plans for a new family of heavy-lift launch vehicles called RLA, which stood for “Rocket Flying Apparatus”. This was the same term that Glushko had used for some experimental liquid-fuel boosters he had developed way back in the early 1930s while working for the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in Lenin­grad. In Glushko’s original vision, the Soviet shuttle was going to be just one payload for the RLA family.

With Glushko’s background in engine development, it was logical that his initial efforts at NPO Energiya focused mainly on launch vehicles. Until then he had only concentrated on designing and building the rocket engines themselves, with other design bureaus (Korolyov, Chelomey, Yangel) being responsible for building the rockets that were powered by those engines. Now, with the merger of Energomash and TsKBEM, Glushko received the infrastructure and workforce to design not only engines, but also the rockets themselves.

The RLA plan revolved around two key concepts. First, it required the development of a new generation of powerful rocket engines using liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer, and kerosene and hydrogen as fuel. Second, it envisaged the use of standardized rocket stages that could be assembled into different configurations tailored to the specific payloads to be placed into orbit.