Tupolev Voron

The Tupolev Voron, Russian for Raven, was a planned supersonic unmanned reconnaissance aircraft of the Soviet Union, largely based on or designed to compete with the Lockheed D-21. After a D-21 drone crashed in the Soviet Union in 1969 on its first mission, the Council of Ministers commissioned the Tupolev bureau, under Alexei Tupolev, to rebuild it from Soviet materials, engines and equipment. The drone was to follow a pre-programmed route using inertial navigation, carry a single high-resolution camera, and be launched from a Tu-95 bomber, with a bomber version of the Tu-144 and the Tu-160 also considered. A booster would accelerate it to supersonic speed, and the collected data was to descend by parachute in a reusable section. The Voron was not built, because the Soviet government came to believe that reconnaissance satellites would be more effective.