A quarter-century after the Cold War came to a close, the only cannon that actually fired in space has finally come to light.
Installed on the Almaz

Remembering That Time the Soviet Union Shot a Top-Secret Space Cannon While in Orbit

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2024-04-24 01:30:04

A quarter-century after the Cold War came to a close, the only cannon that actually fired in space has finally come to light.

Installed on the Almaz space station in the 1970s, the R-23M Kartech was derived from a powerful aircraft weapon; Aron Rikhter designed the original 23-millimeter cannon for the Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder supersonic bomber. That gun is relatively well known, but its space-based cousin has largely remained in obscurity.

Thanks to a Russian television show, the world caught a grainy glimpse of the space gun. Using that footage, we created a virtual model of the R-23M. This is the inside story.

From the dawn of the Space Age, the prospect of American spacecraft approaching and inspecting Soviet military satellites—which, according to the Kremlin’s propaganda, were not even supposed to exist—terrified the secrecy-obsessed Soviet military. The fear of attack on spacecraft was real, with both sides of the Iron Curtain developing anti-satellite weapons. It seemed perfectly logical in the 1960s that the military and piloted spacecraft would need self-defense weapons.

The early Soviet space station project codenamed Almaz (“diamond”) became the first real candidate for defensive space weaponry. The habitable outpost was intended almost exclusively for military purposes, starting with reconnaissance. Along with some state-of-the-art spy equipment, such as cameras and radar, Almaz would carry the cannon in its arsenal.