When selecting the first cannon to go to space, the R-23M cannon was given the duty. The R-23M was a 23-millimeter cannon that had previously been used as the tail gun in the Tu-22 “Blinder” bomber. It fired 200-gram shells at 1,500 miles per hour.
The actual firing of the R-23M came from the Salyut-3 space station in 1975, the third Salyut space station, and the second secret Almaz station in the program. Salyut-3 was launched into orbit in 1974, but the cannon was not fired until the station’s last day in orbit on January 24, 1975. The test-fire was done remotely after the crew had already departed.
This was done because firing a cannon in space is a nightmare of physics issues. For starters, the cannon could not be aimed separately from the space station. This meant that the entire station had to be turned to aim the R-23M. Next, the recoil of the cannon would affect the position of the space station due to the conditions of space, so to counteract this, jet thrusters had to fire at the same time as the cannon. In short, firing a cannon in space was hardly practical.
They did it, though, and fired about 20 rounds from three bursts of the cannon. Any other details of the cannon test remain classified. However, future Soviet space stations did not seem to include an R-23M or any other cannon, so that may speak to the effectiveness. This is only speculation, though.
The public got to first see the space cannon in 2015, 40 years after it was fired, when footage was shown on Russian television. While the classified parts of history may show that other covert space weapons were tested or used, the 1975 Soviet space cannon is the only known instance of a weapon fired in space.
Top Image: NASA
Related: 5 Soviet Space Programs That Prove Russia Was Insane
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That Time The Soviets Fired A Cannon In Space
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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