الصاروخ بعيد المدى .. كتاب في سبيل موسوعة علمية .. الدكتور أحمد ذكي

Long range missile

After this introduction, which gives a general idea about the operation of the missile, we turn to the large picture of the missile that accompanies this speech.

It is a long-range Russian missile. Whether it is Russian, or American, missiles today are similar. At least on the surface.

We will go over the parts of this missile, one by one, and explain its operation in more detail.

- Rocket engine:

It's the most important thing about it. This is because it is the driving force that moves it, that rapid movement without which the missile would not be called a missile.

We mentioned that the missile has a tank for liquid fuel, kerosene, another for oxygen, and a third for combustion. The combustion gases emerge in a rush, under great pressure, from a narrow exit, giving the missile movement in the opposite direction.
This is the engine, the rocket engine.

- Missile bodies are made of plastics:

The bodies of these tanks are made of a very hard alloy of titanium. Finally, plastics were successfully used in the manufacture of rocket bodies, as a result of which their weight was reduced and the range to which their fuel was sent increased.

The speed of the missile is based on the speed of its gas:

The speed of the missile depends on the amount of gas emerging from the nozzle of the combustion tank, and on the speed of its exit. Roughly speaking, we say that as the speed of the gas exits from this narrow nozzle doubles, the speed of the missile in its launch doubles.
The speed of the jet gas is between 2.2 and 2.7 kilometers per second, resulting in a jet force that carries the missile to great distances.

- Pumping fuel and oxidizer into the combustion tank:

In one second of time, several hundred kilograms of fuel and oxygen enter the combustion tank, which are pumped into the combustion tank by a turbopump to supply them with them. It is located between the fuel and oxygen tanks and the combustion tank.

- Pressure and temperature in the combustion tank:

While the engine is running and the missile is launching, the pressure reaches . The gas in the combustion tank is between 50 and 60 atmospheres of pressure, while the temperature is between 3000 and 3500 degrees.

(A general illustrative picture of the Russian rocket projectile. At its head is the bomb, with its cover on it that protects it. At its tail, gases are rushing in, pushing the missile upwards: And the picture shows a curved path that shows how the projectile travels in traction, and how. The head of the projectile alone, and the missile alone, are both in the second half of path due to gravity alone)

Celsius, which is a high degree, made possible by the fact that the wall of the tank has two walls, between which the liquid fuel and oxygen pass before they enter the combustion tank, so they take from its temperature and cool it down, then they enter into the combustion.

The fuel varies and can be liquid or solid:

We mentioned that liquid fuel is kerosene, and kerosene is of different grades. But the fuel may also be alcohol or other fuels. We mentioned that the oxidizer is liquid oxygen, and it may be something else, such as concentrated azotic acid with special additives.
The fuel and oxidizer may be replaced with a solid mixture of the two, formed into cubes, with which to fill the missile body. It then acts as a combustion tank, and it is in it that it burns.

The missile has fins:

You can see it in the drawing attached to the wall of the combustion tank from the outside. These are plates that split the air while the missile is launched, giving it balance, making it difficult for it to tilt its course to the right or to the left. They also give fins to arrows when they shoot them from their strings for a similar purpose.

I think the name is taken from the fins of fish. Fish fins, especially those above the back of the fish as it floats in the water, prevent the fish from tilting and give it stability in the direction it started.

There is no need for the missile fins to be large, because then they will strongly resist every attempt to correct the direction of the missile using the devices guiding it if it is sharp in its path. We will talk about these directed devices.

- Explosive missile head:

It is the bomb that the missile is intended to carry to the enemies to explode in them, in their factories, or in their warhead devices. It can be a conventional explosive or a nuclear bomb. Covered with a cone-shaped lid that contained it. This cone has a membrane to resist the high temperature that the cone will experience when it descends from the ground and passes through the dense layers of air near the surface. Its temperature at that time may reach 7000 degrees Celsius.

- The trajectory of the missile and the curve of the projectile in the air:

If you throw a stone in the air, it may rise to a certain point, then begin to descend in an almost arc until it hits the ground. The first part of this journey gained energy from your hand and rose with it, and the Earth’s gravity began to decrease until it was empty, then gravity alone took over after that, bringing it down to the surface of the Earth.

As well as the rocket-propelled grenade. A motivating energy carried it upward, against gravity. She continued carrying it until the energy ran out and gravity alone prevailed. So the missile began to descend to the ground (both the missile's body and its head after they had separated, as you can see in the picture), in a curved line, according to the law of kinematics, that is, mechanics.

In long-range missiles, the missile is launched vertically, in order to quickly penetrate the denser layers of air and reach the upper part of the atmosphere, where the air density is very low, and because of this, the projectile’s ascent there is faster.

The range to which the missile rises and goes far into the ground depends on the strength of the missile and what is in it.
From fuel.

The projectile's path is accurately drawn before launching the missile, and a program is drawn up for it that feeds the guidance devices in the missile according to what we will describe. The missile adjusts its course according to this program (unless orders to control its movement and path come via radio from its controllers on the ground).

Then control and guidance stop, and the missile separates from the projectile head, and the latter proceeds to the previously calculated, envisioned target, unaffected except by what is affected by a piece of stone thrown by its shooter, and it begins to fall to the ground. That is, it is controlled only by the laws of ordinary Ballistic missiles.