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The Tsybin RS was originally a high-speed ground-launched manned aircraft. The March 1954 draft project specified a twin ramjet vehicle that would cruise at 3,000 km/hr at 30 km altitude, over a 14,400 km range, with a takeoff mass of only 22 tonnes. To achieve this performance would require that 75% of the takeoff mass would be structure, and 3% payload, leaving only 22% for the vehicle. This was not achievable, and the final design had an empty weight 43% of the takeoff weight, cutting the range in half. By August 1956 the design had been modified to the more modest RSR configuration, which was air launched, cruised at 2800 km/hour at 26,700 m with a 1700 km radius of action. A subsonic aerodynamic test vehicle, the NM-1 was built and first flown on 7 April 1959 by test p[ilot Amert-Khan Sultan. Construction of prototypes was started the same year, but then stopped in the spring of 1961, with three airframes nearly finished. Tsybin went to work for Korolev at OKB-1.
The design specified a twin ramjet vehicle that would cruise at 3,000 km/hr at 30 km altitude, over a 14,400 km range, with a takeoff mass of only 22 tonnes.
The RS design was modified to the more modest RSR configuration, which was air launched, cruised at 2800 km/hour at 26,700 m with a 1700 km radius of action.
A subsonic aerodynamic test vehicle of the RSR trisonic missile, the NM-1 was first flown oby test p[ilot Amert-Khan Sultan.
Tsybin's design bureau had been taken over by Chelomei, and work on the RS was stopped in the spring of 1961, with three airframes nearly finished. Tsybin went to work for Korolev at OKB-1.