Since the beginning of the Cold War, unmanned US reconnaissance balloons have become a real headache for the Soviet air defense system. To solve the problem, the M-17 Stratosphere interceptor was developed under the guidance of designer Vladimir Myasishchev.
In February 1956, the CIA launched more than 500 balloons over the USSR as part of Operation Genetrix. The Americans were interested in transport hubs, military bases and training grounds. In total, the Genetrix operation covered almost three million square kilometers of territory. The flying spies started from five points: from the US Air Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, from the Scottish village of Evanton, from the Norwegian airport Gardermoen and the West German Giebelstadt and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Each spy probe was equipped with an altimeter, which, by means of automatic control, did not allow it to fall below an altitude of 20-25 kilometers. Photography was also controlled by automatic machines. Having a thin synthetic shell, up to 5 microns thick, the balloons were almost invisible to radar.
To intercept such unusual targets, fighters or ground-based air defense systems were poorly suited. Because anti-aircraft guns at a height of 25-30 kilometers did not shoot. Soviet fighters could not always reach such a ceiling, either. It was a waste to spend high-tech rockets on balloons, and they did not always work when they came into contact with the soft surface of the balloons.
For the solution of the problem in 1970, the employees of the Experimental Machine-building Plant of the designer Vladimir Myasishchev took up. In parallel, the development of weapons and a search and sighting station was underway. The requirements for optics were so great that the windshield of the rangefinder had to be made from a single piece of mountain Brazilian crystal, since there were no such pure minerals in the USSR. For reliable destruction of the target, 23-mm fragmentation shells with a particularly sensitive fuse were created. They were filled with metal wire flagella, cutting the shell of the balls like blades.
The M-17 Stratosphere anti-aerostat aircraft took off on May 26, 1982. In total, three aircraft were manufactured. However, it was not possible to test the world's only interceptor of balloons - the United States curtailed the program of using spy balloons. Then the M-17 was declassified, and in 1990 it appeared under the new name "Stratosphere". It set 25 world records, including a climb to a height of 21,860 meters with acceleration to 734.3 km / h. The M-17 then made a series of high-altitude flights to study the ozone layer.
Nikolay Grishchenko