Tupolev Tu-130

The Tupolev Tu-130 was a Soviet concept for a boost-glider launched by an intercontinental three-stage missile, worked on at the Tupolev Design Bureau from 1957. The unmanned long-range glider, called the DP, was to be the last stage of a strategic rocket carried up by a medium-range ballistic missile such as the R-5 or R-12, separated at 80 to 100 km altitude and guided by aerodynamic control surfaces to a target some 4,000 km away at speeds up to Mach 10. It had no power plant of its own. The design chosen in 1959 was a tailless aircraft with a wedge-shaped fuselage, a small delta wing with 75 degrees of sweepback, a graphite nose and leading edges, and a stainless steel airframe. The first of a planned five experimental aircraft was built in 1960, but the work was ended by a resolution of the Council of Ministers in favour of the Tu-123 cruise missile, and the research passed to the Zvezda manned rocket plane.