The designations of Soviet missiles, launch vehicles, and spacecraft were considered state secrets. Therefore as long as that state existed very few of the designations were made public. During the Cold War the missiles were referred to by a sequential code assigned by the US Central Intelligence Agency or by a code name assigned by the NATO ASCC Reporting Committee. The CIA codes consisted of letters indicating the role of the missile followed by a number assigned in the sequence in which the missile was detected (usually by telemetry intercepted during missile tests).

Whatever true designations became known to the western intelligence agencies were not made public in order to conceal intelligence 'sources and methods'. This suited the Soviets. In order to preserve their state secrets they went so far as to use the CIA designations for their missiles in the 1972 SALT-1 Treaty. During the SALT-2 and INF treaty negotiations the US side pressed for true Soviet designations to be used. The Soviets eventually obliged by creating a bogus series of 'RS' designations. These were perversely assigned similar to an existing real designation system but in a slightly different sequence.

The actual system used within the Soviet Union consisted of two designations: 'secret' and 'public' (although both were considered state secrets!)

The 'secret' designation for large ballistic missiles and space launchers consisted of the letter R followed by a sequential number, followed by letters indicating a modification to the basic design (e.g. R-1, R-2, R-3, R-5; R-5M for modernized or maritime version, R-14U for universal version, etc.). This number sequence originated in the late 1940's and was shared between a Russian team under Chief Designer Korolev and a 'guest' German team under Groettrup. The German team knew their own designs only under a 'public' system of 'G' (for Groettrup) numbers. Unknown to them, the designs had a parallel secret 'R-' designation. The first two designs, the R-1 and R-2, were joint efforts. Korolev made sure he had the 'lucky' odd numbers (R-3, R-5, R-7, R-9, R-11, but not R-13!), while the Germans were assigned numbers beginning with 10 (R-10, R-12 through R-15). By the mid-1950's the German group was disbanded and additional Russian design bureaux were set up for rocket design (Glushko, Makeyev, Yangel). The lower even 'R-' numbers were reassigned to German designs and the unused designations from R-8 and up were re-used for the designs of the new bureaux . A second sequence was begun for solid propellant missiles with the 'RT-' prefix in the late 1950's when development of these began (raketa toplivniy, solid fuel rocket). A series for orbital weapons launchers (GR-, 'global rocket') was begun but the only missile deployed in this system retained its R- designation (R-36-O, 'O' for 'orbital').

In the 1960's consistent use of the sequence began to break down after 39 numbers had been allocated. The Chief Designers wanted to 'trademark' their designs with unique designation series. First, Chelomei introduced his own sequence of 'UR-' (universal rocket) designations. Korolev introduced his 'N' sequence for future space launchers (N=nositel = carrier rocket). Yangel, taking a leaf from Boeing, decided to 'trademark' his rockets by using the series R-16, R-26, R-36, R-46, R-56 for major projects. Thus he skipped ahead, leaving whole blocks of numbers unused. Nadiradze began his own series of solid propellant rockets with the 'Temp-' designation. The assignment of new numbers within this system ended with the reorganization of the Soviet missile industry in 1966. Thereafter missiles replacing earlier designs were given suffix letters indicating modification of an existing design, even if the missile was completely new.

There were hints of this system in the West from the late 1960's when histories of Soviet rocketry would refer to older designs by these numbers. The most notable example was the term 'semyorka' or 'good ol' number seven' used for the R-7 rocket that launched Sputnik. Furthermore designations announced for scientific sounding rockets (V =vertikal) derived from military designs retained their sequence (e.g. V1 = R-1, V2 = R-2, V5 = R-5).

The 'secret' rocket designations are given below.

The ‘article number’ – the 'public' designation - may be considered the 'real' designation of the rocket. An example of such a number was first explicitly revealed in the book Inside the Soviet Army by the defector "Suvorov" in 1983. On page 127 he reveals both the secret and public designations for the UR-100 / 8K84 ICBM (known to the west as the SS-11 Sego). 8K84 was the number actually used for configuration control and to assign part number sequences for sub-components of the system. This was the reason it was known as the 'public' designation - because the number itself would be known to hundreds of thousands of workers across the Soviet Union. They wouldn't necessarily know what the part they were working on would go into, but they would know that it was for 'article' 8K84.

Of course a missile can be considered at many levels of integration. At the top level there is the entire system - not just the missile itself but its launcher or silo, and associated control or guidance facilities. There is the missile itself, which in later Soviet practice was integrated with a sealed container, ready to be fired at short notice over a guaranteed lifetime measured in decades. Next was the missile as it actually flew through the air. Then there were the modular sub-components of the rocket - such as its warhead, guidance system, separate stages, and engines. A final level below this would be the components - structural elements, engine and electronic system components, and so on.

The designation system at the top few levels used a consistent format and consisted of three parts:

Finally at the component level a unique part number would be assigned to each separately fabricated component that could be traced back to the final article. For example the transport container for the 8K84 (considered an integral part of the missile itself) was designated 8K849510. A bracket from a Scud missile that fell on Riyadh, melted from re-entry heat, bears the part number 8K14-3170-370, relating it right back to the original 8K14 R-11 design of 1953.

The two digit sequences seem to have originally been assigned in blocks of ten to the leading design bureaux. These allocations for large ballistic missiles were:

There is a strong Russian belief that odd numbers are lucky. Korolev's precedence can be seen in the original number allocation. The much slower pace of missile development after 1966 meant that few of the numbers in the blocks allocated were used.

Deviations.

Article numbers for some early Soviet ballistic missiles indicate a different system in the early 1950's. Designations reported for the Energia booster and the Zenit launch vehicle also do not fit into the system. These deviant designations include:

Soviet Ballistic 'Secret' Numbers

Listed for each missile, if known: Secret Number - CIA designation - NATO ASCC Reporting name; Soviet Article Number; SALT Treat designation or other reference

Early Soviet Ballistic Missile Article Numbers

For each missile: sequence number; Article Number; Rocket Number; Designer; CIA designation; ASCC Reporting name; Other designations; comments

Later Soviet Ballistic Missile Article Numbers

For each missile: Sequence Number; Article Numbers; Designer; Rocket designation; CIA designation; ASCC Reporting Name; SALT treaty designation; Comment

Soviet Spacecraft Article Numbers

The designation allocations for spacecraft across all series (11, 14, 17) seem to use a single sequence series, although quite a few numerical suffixes had to be used for unrelated spacecraft after the 1960's. Listed for each spacecraft: Sequence number, Article Number, Spacecraft, Manufacturer, Type, Comments