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By having a gun on board, one can conduct military kinds of experiments. Exploring armoring approaches for spacecraft, warning systems for the personnel, orbital ballistic studies for the multi-body attacker-projectile-target systems. The actual presence of weaponry in space has an immediate impact on the design of certain classes of spacecrafts.

The Zvezda module of the Russian ISS sector is the direct descendant of Almaz (Salyut) space stations. The Almaz stations had the Nudelman-Rikhter gun onboard. Is an NR gun installed on Zvezda?

If yes, have any experiments been conducted with it?

uhoh
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    I don't see how this is primarily opinion based. Either the module is attached or it isn't... –  Jul 17 '13 at 18:26
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    Why do you think this question is off-topic? Would it be an off-topic if I asked about a fuel tank or a robotic arm? Which paragraph does this question violate? –  Jul 17 '13 at 19:07
  • The issue is that it isnt about space exploration. If you went to a land exploration website (if there was one) and asked if a car had a specific engine it wouldnt be on topic just because land exploration used cars. Similarly, questions about parts of a station arent related to space exploration, just because it is in space –  Jul 17 '13 at 19:36
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    There are military aspects of space exploration. Having a gun on board one can conduct a military kind of experiments. Exploring armoring approaches for the space crafts, warning systems for the personnel, orbital ballistic studies for the multi-body attacker-projectile-target systems. The actual presence of weaponry has an immediate impact on the design of certain classes of spacecrafts. I can add the above paragraph to the question if it is to help it being un-hold. –  Jul 17 '13 at 20:54
  • i suggest taing it to chat or meta, im not sure if weaponry testing is classified as ontopic or even exploration, perhaps bring it to the communities attention to get a consensus –  Jul 17 '13 at 21:37
  • Good suggestion. I've moved to http://meta.space.stackexchange.com/questions/72/is-miltary-use-of-space-ontopic-is-weaponry-testing-ontopic –  Jul 17 '13 at 22:36
  • The gun on Almaz-2 was installed for testing of viability of having such armament. The recoil from test-firing rattled the whole station endangering its integrity, and as result the conclusion of the experiment was "not viable at all." It wasn't installed ever again. – SF. Jan 03 '20 at 20:35
  • "Nudelman-Rikhter" sounds more like a numerical technique than a weapon, perhaps for the shooting method ;-) – uhoh Jan 04 '20 at 06:52
  • Related question: https://space.stackexchange.com/q/17590/33950 – Sergiy Lenzion Jan 04 '20 at 07:35
  • @SF. "recoil from test-firing rattled the whole station endangering its integrity" could you provide a source for this? I was under impression that results of that firing test were still classified. – Sergiy Lenzion Jan 04 '20 at 07:50
  • @LeoS I wish I could point you to the exact source - I remember I found this during a couple hours long Wikipedia binge surrounding the Almaz program, probably in one of the linked sources, and definitely just as a mention, not some fully-featured 'test firing report' or such. The accounts on the test firing itself are conflicting so it's definitely not an authoritative information, but definitely on a likely side considering what is known about spacecraft behavior in reaction to harmonic/reciprocating motion. – SF. Jan 04 '20 at 08:12

2 Answers2

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Almaz was the military version of the Salyut. At that time while military meant reconnaissance "only"; Salyut 2, 3 and 5 are referred to as Almaz. Some sources say that the Almaz editions were equipped with guns while the civil editions of Salyut were not.

It is safe to assume that with the ISS being a rather civil and international cooperation, its Russian segments were based on the civil edition of the Salyut.

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s-m-e
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According to this source (in Russian), out of seven successful Salyut stations (amongst which were the three military Almaz stations) the modified NR-23 cannon was installed only on Salyut-3 (aka Almaz-2):

The only prototype of such an installation was mounted at the Almaz-2 station, also known as Salyut-3.

The above statement indirectly assumes that MIR Core Module and ISS Zvezda Module, being derivatives of Salyut/Almaz stations, did not have the gun mounted.

Also the gun was designed to be mounted rigidly to the Almaz-2 station (see this answer, which required to move/turn the entire station in order to aim the cannon, so it would be reasonable to assume that the need to change the whole ISS attitude for these experiments would cause "a bit" of inconvenience.

Aiming at a target was performed with the help of the sight and an automatic system. According to this webpage (in Russian), the optical aiming system looked like this: enter image description here

If there's no such a system installed in Zvezda, the odds are that the cannon is not installed either.

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Sergiy Lenzion
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