In the shadow of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a protracted arms race. In this race, missile technology has become one of the key points of contention between the two sides. It seeks to compete with the United States in nuclear weapons and missile technology.
At that time, the Soviet Union had three types of missiles, the P-5, P-12 and P-7A, but the P-5 and P-12 could only be regarded as medium-range missiles, while the P-7A mainly served space missions, and none of them could directly threaten the US mainland. At the same time, the United States has deployed 40 ICBMs and also has the ability to easily hit the Soviet Union with missiles deployed in Britain, Italy and Turkey.
This apparent military disparity was extremely unsettling to the Soviet Union, so they decided to accelerate their own ICBM development program. It was against this background that the P-16 ICBM project was born, and the head of the Soviet artillery, Nederin, was chosen as the general head of the project. In gratitude to Khrushchev for his past support, Nederin promised to complete the development of the missile before the anniversary of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, and presented this strategically important achievement as a special "gift" to Khrushchev, who had just returned from a visit to the United States.
In order to catch up with the military pace of the United States, the Soviet Union did not hesitate to invest huge amounts of financial, material, and human resources into the P-16 intercontinental missile project. Finally, it was built in September 1960.
Then a team of top scientists performs the final tests. The team brought together the Soviet Union's top missile experts and nuclear physicists at a time when they were working toward this goal. An unprecedented catastrophic accident shocked the world and became the most tragic page in the history of the Soviet Union. The accident occurred in 1960, at a critical time in the development of a new missile for the Soviet Union.
On October 21, the P16 completed engine docking and was transported to the test launch site.
On October 23, the missile and rocket were docked, and the fuel components and compressed gas were filled inside.
But just half an hour before the launch, there was an accident on the P-16 intercontinental missile project. During the final inspection, the crew heard the sound of the high-temperature diaphragm detonation in the fuel line of the P-16 missile, which could have caused the missile to fail to ignite properly and lift into the air. In addition, there was a problem with the detonator of the inflator's closing valve, further exacerbating the problem.
People were faced with two choices: abandon the launch plan, tear it down, or spend a day fixing it.
The Soviet Union had invested a lot of personnel and money in the early stage, of course, it was impossible to give up, so it was decided to repair it, but repairing missiles is not so easy to repair, you must know that the P16 is a liquid missile. Cryogenic liquids are highly corrosive and must be repaired within a day, otherwise the missile will be scrapped.
So the person in charge, Marshal Nederin, made a decision: to repair it directly without emitting fuel!
The experimenters were physically and mentally exhausted after nervously troubleshooting the P-16 missile. They hastily removed the protective block, which was supposed to prevent the engine from starting unexpectedly, but failed to put it back in time or negligence.
At the same time, the crew of the control station was busy repairing the program power distributor, the key piece of equipment responsible for sending start commands to the engine. After rotating the distributor to the starting state, they did not perform a detailed inspection of the line. As a result, the instrument incorrectly started the secondary engine, while the occlusion had been removed. The flames ejected from above by the second-stage engine instantly penetrated the oxidizer tank and the first-stage fuel tank, causing 160 tons of fuel to explode violently into raging flames.
The people inside and around the missile were instantly engulfed in flames, and those who were a little further away from the missile tried to escape, but the burning fuel quickly spread and trapped them. Marshal Nedelin, because he was too close to the explosion point, was vaporized by the high temperature in an instant, and even the bones were not left. And none of the scientists who are working intensively have been spared. Their bodies were instantly reduced to ashes by the powerful shock wave and high temperatures, and the entire team was left alive.