System 49 and Bizan

Studies of new air-launched systems began at NPO Molniya in 1977 under a research program known as Rosa (“Dew”) and initially focused on the use of the Antonov-124 Ruslan as the carrier aircraft. By 1981 this resulted in the so-called System 49, in which the Ruslan would carry a single-person 13-ton spaceplane attached in tandem to a two-stage rocket. The rocket had two Kuznetsov NK-43 LOX/kerosene engines in the first stage and a single Lyulka 11D57M LOX/LH2 engine in the second stage. With an overall take-off mass of 430 tons, System 49 allowed the spaceplane to place about 4 tons into a low 51° inclination orbit. Payloads could be launched into orbits with altitudes between 120 and 1,000 km and with inclinations between 45° and 94°.

In 1982 System 49 was superseded by a modified system called Bizan (“Mizzen”). Having the same performance as System 49, it differed from the latter in that the spaceplane was placed on top of a single-stage rocket and had main engines itself. The advantage of the single-stage rocket was that it would burn up over the ocean across the world from the launch point. In the two-stage System 49 the first stage would have crashed in a zone about 2,000 km from the launch point, requiring that area to be cleared for impact. Bizan’s rocket was fitted with a single NK – 43A, while the spaceplane itself had two 11D57M engines, which could now be reused on subsequent missions. Also considered was a cargo version known as Bizan-T, where the spaceplane was replaced by an unmanned cargo canister [4]. Bizan was also

the name of an unmanned rocket system launched from the An-225 Mriya that was studied by the Volga Branch of NPO Energiya in 1984-1988 [5].