Ultra Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

sponges when the throttles were mishandled. The MiG-25 had an operational radius of only 1,450 kilometers.
    Both aircraft were stripped of armament, flying ʻcleanʼ They were each equipped with video cameras and video transmitters, as well as the NATO-named ʻFox Fireʼ fire control radar. The radar had been modified by the addition of a rear-facing antenna in order to provide a full 360-degree sweep. The radar range was eighty-three kilometers, and the pilots would use it to follow the A2e.
    Mirakov’s wingman orbited in a lazy oval four kilometers to Mirakov’s west.
    When he heard the launch director announce one minute to ignition on his secondary radio, Mirakov depressed the transmit button on the inboard throttle handle. “Condor Two?”
    “I am prepared, Condor One.”
    “Take up a heading of one-one-zero degrees. Now.”
    “Confirmed. One-one-zero.”
    Mirakov rolled out of his bank as he came around to the compass heading.
    The A2e was programmed to lift from the pad, then rotate to the east-southeast, climbing toward the rotation of the earth which assisted it in achieving escape velocity. With the solid-rocket boosters, the A2e would generate a total of nearly thirty million newtons of thrust. It would accelerate quickly, though Mirakov had been told that the thrust profile had been designed to keep acceleration loads at close to three gravities. The engineers did not want to put undue stresses on the payload component.
    The launch profile called for the A2e to achieve an orbital velocity of 28,000 kilometers per hour in fourteen minutes. That was over twenty times the speed of sound, and seventeen times faster than the speed of the MiGs. Mirakov and his wingman would have the A2e on their cameras for less than four minutes.
    “Ignition confirmed.”
    The launch director’s voice was almost bored. He had done this many times before.
    Mirakov shoved both of his throttles outboard and forward, engaging the afterburners. The sudden acceleration depressed his body into the parachute and survival pack cushions of his seat. As he eased the stick back until he had a sixty-degree climb, the positive G-forces increased. The skin of his face sagged.
    “The vehicle has cleared the gantry tower.”
    Several whoops of elation could be heard in the background.
    Forty seconds later, Mirakov’s wingman said, “Condor One, I have a contact.”
    “Affirmative, Two.”
    The small radar screen emplaced in his instrument panel next to the centered video screen showed him three blips, those of his wingman, an aerial fuel tanker orbiting twenty kilometers to the south, and the A2e. The rocket had already passed through Mach 2 and achieved an altitude of 8.000meters. It would pass over his left shoulder within seconds.
    “On track, on course. Velocity Mach two-point-three,ˮ a controller on the ground intoned.
    Mirakov activated his nose camera. The screen flickered to life and showed him an unending panorama of hazy blue. Two green LEDs reported that the video recorders were turning.
    His Mach readout indicated 2.7.
    A glance at the radar screen.
    He depressed the transmit button. “Two, I show target range at fifteen kilometers, closure rate thirty meters per minute and increasing.”
    “Affirmed, One.”
    Mirakov searched his rearview mirror and found the white plume erupting from a small black dot. As he watched, the dot grew into a soccer ball. It would pass over him by half a kilometer.
    He eased the stick back to increase the angle of his climb.
    “Closure rate about one hundred meters per minute,” Condor Two radioed.
    The altimeter readout flickered. He was passing through 22,000 meters.
    The rocket passed overhead like a shadow through life. 
    “On course, on track, velocity Mach four-point-nine,” the controller reported.
    Again, he tugged back on the stick. The climb angle increased to 67 degrees. The image of the A2e appeared on his screen, and Mirakov immediately used the thumb wheel on the head of his