Merkur (spacecraft)

Merkur (spacecraft)

The Vozvraschaemyi Apparat (Russian: Возвращаемый Аппарат ВА, Return Vehicle, GRAU index 11F74), or VA spacecraft, was a Soviet crew capsule, intended to serve as a manned launch and reentry vehicle. Initially designed for the LK-1 manned lunar flyby spacecraft for one of the Soviet manned lunar programs, then the LK-700 redesign, it was later repurposed for the Almaz military space station program. The VA capsule on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum was labeled as Merkur, following a mistranslation of the original documentation – while incorrect, the name is being used in the West for the VA spacecraft and capsule.

The VA spacecraft was capable of independent flight – up to 31 hours in its last incarnation – it needed however to be combined with additional hardware (containing propulsion and storage) to achieve a longer flight duration. Three different such usage scenarios for the VA spacecraft were planned: Initially the LK-1 spacecraft, and after LK-1's cancelation the plans for Almaz APOS and the TKS spacecraft utilized the VA spacecraft.

• For the lunar flyby spacecraft LK-1, the plans by Vladimir Chelomey's design bureau OKB-52 were to mate an VA spacecraft together with an Equipment-Rocket System Block (PAB) and the Translunar Injection Stage (RB).

For the Almaz program, the plans envisaged two configurations for the crewed VA spacecraft:

• An VA spacecraft would have launched the initial crew of an Almaz-OPS space station, the VA spacecraft launched together with the station itself; This combination was known as "Almaz APOS".
• An VA spacecraft would have been launched mated together with an Functional Cargo Block (FGB) to resupply an Almaz station, in both crewed and uncrewed flights; This combination was known as the TKS spacecraft.

While the VA spacecraft has seen some successful uncrewed test flights, both with and without an Functional Cargo Block, it never served in its intended role as a lunar or Almaz crew vehicle when the programs was canceled, and neither was it ever launched together with an Almaz space station.