The concepts and plans for the first generation of Soviet spacecraft came from the visionary chief designers themselves - Korolev and Chelomei. During the course of the 1960's a more orderly process of specifying, developing, and deploying space systems was put into place. This was largely derived from established processes for aircraft and other military products.

The following describes the 'official' orderly process as it was supposed to be practised. As was the case in the United States this process could be short-circuited by powerful Chief Designers, Generals, or Politicians. But to a large degree the space systems that went into production for use by the Soviet military followed this procedure.

Soviet space projects and planning, like the rest of that society, worked on the national cycle of five year plans. The first steps leading to any space system was the execution of technology assessment, threat assessment, and cost trade-off studies to determine the requirements and possibilities for space systems that should be developed in the next five year plan (and normally deployed in the following five year plan). This was done by 50 TsNII KS MO (50th Central Scientific Research Institute for Space Systems of the Ministry of Defence) in co-operation with various space research institutions (TsNIIMASH, NIITI, Agat, NII Khimash, etc.). The final result was a draft five year plan including defence plans, draft specifications, preliminary flight test plans, etc. These plans were assigned code names and formed the basis for negotiation of the final five year plan between the power brokers in the military industrial complex.

Once the final plan was approved, it would be formalised in a decree of the Communist Party Central Committee and the Supreme Council of Government Ministers. The planning process had already generated a TTZ, or tactical-technical requirements document, for each new system. This specification included:

• Purposes and requirements of the spacecraft, launch vehicle, or system
• Fundamental characteristics, including required equipment
• Required flight plan, including orbital parameters
• Required minimum equipment and interfaces. This includes definition of the number and interval of control and command communications sessions, required telemetry parameters, orientation/stabilisation requirements, thermal requirements
• Conditions on use of the system and its components
• Required documentation and deliverable data items
• Number and types of systems required for development and flight trials

The government decree provided the permission for the design bureaux to expend the internal funds necessary to create the draft project document (equivalent to use of Bidding, Proposal, Industrial Research and Development budget pools of US government contractors). Selection of a design bureau, and the decision whether to even proceed with development of the system, would only be made after submission of the draft projects. The steps involved in creating a draft project:

• Estimate of spacecraft mass and dimensions, leading to selection of an appropriate launch vehicle
• Financial and schedule estimates for the development program
• Preliminary specification for on-board equipment
• Identification of applicable technical standards and standard equipment already meeting needs
• Communication with other design bureaux (launch vehicle, spacecraft, subsystems, propulsion) to establish contact points and set up teams
• Specification compliance matrix
• In parallel with these steps, review of current and previous applicable development projects, patent searches, maximum use of already-completed development.

Step 1: Advanced Project or Technical Proposal. This contained:

• Brief overall description of the spacecraft
• Functional process diagrams
• Selected general layout and/or presentation of variants as indicated by trade-off study
• Technical specification of subsystems and on-board equipment
• Completion of theoretical and experimental risk-reduction research
• Firm estimate of required development effort
• Analysis of required unique or new-development equipment
• Estimate of technical and economic resources required for development
• General arrangement drawings of the spacecraft
• Development test plan for qualification of systems and propulsion

Step 2: Draft Project. This was the document submitted to the customer. It contained:

• Proposed detailed component layout, flight plan, system and subsystem specification
• Systematic analysis of spacecraft reliability
• Development, qualification, and flight test program
• Recommended flight test program
• Failure modes analysis
• Proposed production documentation
• Specification compliance matrix

In Soviet practice the draft project of each design bureau would be 'defended' in person, much as an academic dissertation might be defended, to a government commission consisting not only of customer representatives but the competing chief designers as well. Depending on the results of the review, as well as inevitable budget battles and politicking, one institute would be selected to proceed with development of the system (in at least one famous case - the RS-17 and RS-19 ICBM's - the leadership utterly deadlocked on the selection, resulting in two major systems meeting the same TTZ being developed and put into production).

If the decision was made to proceed, this would be formalised in another government decree. Typical steps in systems development included:

• Development of documentation required for production
• Drawing release for production of the complete article
• Documentation required to build factory and development test fixtures, tooling, and test equipment
• Electrical drawings for factory and test equipment
• Flight test documentation
• Post-flight analysis and corrective action
• Development tests, limited to but not including:

  • Mechanical and systems test stands
  • Static test
  • Dynamic test
  • Thermal test
  • Parachute and recovery tests on land and sea
  • Solar panel test
  • Electric system test