Mir-2 modules

In response to the announcement of America’s Freedom space station in 1984, the Soviet Union devised plans for a massive version of the Mir-2 space station using giant modules launched by the Energiya rocket. There were two competing proposals for such modules, one put forward by the NPO Energiya central design bureau and another by its KB Salyut branch. In the NPO Energiya design, the modules weighed roughly 75 tons and were delivered to the station by a space tug known as GTA-S (Cargo Transport Supply Ship), which would be detached from the module after docking. Orbit insertion of the module/GTA-S combination after separation from the Energiya rocket would have been achieved with a Blok-DM derived upper stage. This particular configuration of Energiya was known as 14A10.

Little is known about the KB Salyut proposal, only that it was based on the Skif design and would have used an FGB section, presumably both for orbit insertion and subsequent maneuvering to the space station.

There were ambitious plans to gradually assemble a station consisting of at least eight such giant modules, but in 1991 budget realities forced these plans to be shelved in favor of a downsized Mir-2 with a 20-ton core module and smaller add-on modules. In 1993 this version of Mir-2 was united with Freedom to become the International Space Station [60].