Satan's conversion...

The story started during the cold war in the context of the missile race between USA and Soviet Union to get a strategical advantage on the other. Such missiles where carrying nuclear heads.

The former Soviet Union developed in the 70ies an intercontinental missile of R36M type called 15A14 and 15A18. This was re-named "Satan" within the NATO terminology.

The picture below shows this SS18-Satan missile,
as displayed at the Historical Museum of the Baikonur Cosmodrome (in the city).


After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90ies, a conversion programme was set to transform "Satan" 'into a peaceful commercial launcher for light weighed spacecrafts (like CryoSat-2).
To make it short: after an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the Russians attributed the re-design of the missile to Yuzhnoe Design Bureau, a company based in Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine.
Satan became then DNIEPR, the name of the famous Ukrainian/Russian/Belarus/Ukrainian river. The river being the linking element between Russia and Ukraine, could we interpret the choice of this name as the materialisation of this cooperation after the split of the Soviet Union?

The poster below (also on display in the museum) explains the various steps of this transformation programme:
(with a picture zoom-in, the explanations in the top left corner are fully readable for the Russian readers)


The Diepr maiden flight took place on 21/04/1999.
With this type of rocket, the payload is directly injected into orbit. Note the longer head (compared to Satan's one) which contains the spacecraft and the engines needed for the separation.


Some close up views of the poster are interesting because spotting scenes that will never be witnessed by the CryoSat-2 (CS-2) team after the spacecraft will have left the MIK.

-The squared shape of the silo lid:
here under, the team who carried the conversion programme at the Baikonur Launch pad 109, the same one that will be used for Cryosat-2


and a view on the Dniepr fairing (short one?) once the launcher is in the silo:


Here under is a model of the DNIEPR rocket on displayed in the museum:
the CryoSat-2 Launcher.


DNIEPR is operated from Baikonur and Yasnyi by ISC Kosmotrac,
Commercial flights are sold by Roskomos.