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Cutting Edge 1/144 Sputnik
 

Cutting Edge 1/144 Sputnik 1 / R-7 Launch Vehicle

By Tim Nelson

Introduction

On October 4, 1957 – 50 years ago this month – the Soviet Union inaugurated a new epoch in human history that was quickly dubbed the “Space Age”. An R-7 rocket, a variant of the SS-6 “Sapwood” Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, thundered aloft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Soviet Central Asia and placed the spherical Sputnik 1 satellite into low earth orbit. Its regular “beep, beep, beep” signal could be picked up by radio operators around the world. The shiny orb appeared as a bright, fast-moving star to observers on Earth before dawn and after dusk, and served to inspire a generation of scientists, engineers, and even astronauts. It also caused widespread panic in the U.S. government!

 

The venerable R-7 launch vehicle has been continuously improved over the years and remains Russia’s workhorse platform for sending vehicles into space. It is the world’s most used and most reliable launch vehicle – nothing else even comes close.

50 years after Sputnik 1, the International Space Station is continuously manned by a joint crew of Russians and Americans. When the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet was grounded in the wake of the Columbia accident in February 2003, several American astronauts were transported to the ISS in Soyuz spacecraft launched by – you guessed it – variants of the R-7 rocket.

I wanted to observe the 50th anniversary of Sputnik 1’s historic flight with an eye-catching model.

Assembly

My build of this historically significant machine was straightforward, essentially out of the box except for minor fabrication of a broken/missing fin.

The all resin kit consists of the core booster section, 4 strap-on boosters, 5 rocket nozzle bases, a set of small vernier rocket nozzles, and booster straps. The Cutting Edge resin castings were quite good, with minimal cleanup required. The area of most effort is removing the pour plugs from the core booster and the 4 strap-on boosters, then ensuring flat surfaces for mating the rocket nozzle bases. The nozzle base area does not exactly match the shape of the booster aft end, which requires some additional whittling.

I painted the 5 main booster sections separately, prior to joining them together. The boosters have location holes for mounting wire to attach things together. Use of wire is highly recommended, not only for location, but to ensure sufficient strength.

Painting and Finishing

Sources differ on the color of this version of the R-7: light/medium gray or olive green. Although the majority of R-7 vehicles and its variants have been painted green, grainy photos I have seen of the Sputnik 1 launcher lead me to conclude this baby was gray. I used a Model Master light gray and didn’t event bother with a wash since the recessed detail was more than plenty pronounced for this scale. I did dry brush the raised detail with a slightly lighter gray for enhanced depth.

The Sputnik antenna probes on the nose cone and the booster heat shields at bottom were rendered in Bare Metal Foil. It should be noted that references differ on whether these antennae were external or internal to the nose cone shroud. It would seem sensible to protect the antennae from the harsh conditions encountered during launch and ascent, but some Soviet drawings do show the antennae external to the shroud. As they say in Russia – the only thing more mysterious than the future, is the past...

Since the flat gray finish is a bit subdued, I mounted it on a blazing Red Star base using a wooden box my wife found at a Michael’s craft store. I used Model Master Insignia Red and created a Cyrillic decal using Supercal clear stock to finish it off.

Conclusion

This was a fun and refreshingly quick build of a very historic vehicle that remains obscure in the West. If you are interested in factual space modeling, or just a change of pace, this Cutting Edge kit is recommended. Cutting Edge also produces a kit of the SS-6 “Sapwood” ICBM, the Vostok launch vehicle, and other R-7 variants.

References

1. Encyclopedia Astronautica

2. Rockets of the World, Peter Alway, Saturn Press, 2nd ed.