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Block D (???? ? in Russian) is the upper stage of USSR/Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
 heavy expendable launch system
Expendable launch system

An expendable launch system is a launch system that uses an expendable launch vehicle to carry a payload into space. The vehicles used in expendable launch systems are designed to be used only once , and their components are not recovered after launch....
s, used for the N1 rocket
N1 rocket

N1 or N-1 was the secret Soviet Union rocket intended to send Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon. It is also known in the west as the G-1e or SL-15....
, Proton rocket
Proton rocket

The Proton rocket is a rocket used in an expendable launch system for both commercial and Russian government launches. The first Proton was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2009, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight....
 and Zenit rocket
Zenit rocket

The Zenit rocket is a space launch vehicle designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau of Ukraine. Zenit was built in the 1980s for two purposes: as a liquid rocket booster for the Energia rocket and, equipped with a second stage, as a stand-alone rocket....
. There were plans to use it for some other rockets as well (project Air Launch).

The stage (and its derivatives) has been included in more than 250 launched rockets . By 2002 its modification Block DM had a 97% success rate in 218 flights since 1974, and 43 successive missions in 1997-2002 .

The stage was developed in 1960s as the fifth stage ('?' is the fifth letter in the Cyrillic alphabet) for the Soviet Moonshot
Soviet Moonshot

"Moonshot" redirects here.'For the Buffy Sainte-Marie album, see Moonshot .Details of the Soviet Union Moonshot were kept intensely secret until the arrival of glasnost....
 N1 rocket
N1 rocket

N1 or N-1 was the secret Soviet Union rocket intended to send Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon. It is also known in the west as the G-1e or SL-15....
.






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Block D (???? ? in Russian) is the upper stage of USSR/Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
 heavy expendable launch system
Expendable launch system

An expendable launch system is a launch system that uses an expendable launch vehicle to carry a payload into space. The vehicles used in expendable launch systems are designed to be used only once , and their components are not recovered after launch....
s, used for the N1 rocket
N1 rocket

N1 or N-1 was the secret Soviet Union rocket intended to send Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon. It is also known in the west as the G-1e or SL-15....
, Proton rocket
Proton rocket

The Proton rocket is a rocket used in an expendable launch system for both commercial and Russian government launches. The first Proton was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2009, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight....
 and Zenit rocket
Zenit rocket

The Zenit rocket is a space launch vehicle designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau of Ukraine. Zenit was built in the 1980s for two purposes: as a liquid rocket booster for the Energia rocket and, equipped with a second stage, as a stand-alone rocket....
. There were plans to use it for some other rockets as well (project Air Launch).

The stage (and its derivatives) has been included in more than 250 launched rockets . By 2002 its modification Block DM had a 97% success rate in 218 flights since 1974, and 43 successive missions in 1997-2002 .

The stage was developed in 1960s as the fifth stage ('?' is the fifth letter in the Cyrillic alphabet) for the Soviet Moonshot
Soviet Moonshot

"Moonshot" redirects here.'For the Buffy Sainte-Marie album, see Moonshot .Details of the Soviet Union Moonshot were kept intensely secret until the arrival of glasnost....
 N1 rocket
N1 rocket

N1 or N-1 was the secret Soviet Union rocket intended to send Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon. It is also known in the west as the G-1e or SL-15....
. The stage first flew in March 1967 while testing Zond of the moonshot program system. During manned lunar flight Block D would be used for mid-course corrections on the flight to the Moon, then to place the lunar orbiter and lander into a lunar orbit, and decelerate moon-lander
LK Lander

The LK was a Soviet lunar lander and counterpart of the United States Lunar Module . The LK was to have landed a single Soviet citizen on the Moon before the Americans, winning the moon race....
 out onto its landing trajectory.

Block D was also included as fourth stage of Proton rocket
Proton rocket

The Proton rocket is a rocket used in an expendable launch system for both commercial and Russian government launches. The first Proton was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2009, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight....
 and as such flew on unmanned Soviet missions to Moon, Mars
MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
 and Venus
Venus

Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus , the Roman mythology goddess of love....
. It is still used in Proton K configuration of the rocket (the newer Proton K uses Briz-M
Briz-M

The Briz-M, also known as Breeze-M, is a Russian orbit insertion booster stage manufactured by Khrunichev and used with the Proton . It completed its maiden flight in May 2000, when it is delivered the Gorizont communications satellite....
 as fourth stage).

Block DM also flies as the third stage for Zenit-3SL rocket, which is used by the Sea Launch
Sea Launch

Sea Launch is a spacecraft launch service that uses a mobile sea platform for equatorial launches of commercial Payload s on specialized Zenit 3SL rockets....
 project to launch geostationary satellites. In 2002 the failure of a Block DM-3 -- used in the attempted launch of Astra 1K
Astra 1K

Astra 1K was a communications satellite manufactured by Alcatel Space for SES Astra. When it was launched on November 25, 2002 it was the largest civilian communications satellite ever launched, weighing ....
 -- caused considerable concern.

The stage uses liquid oxygen
Liquid oxygen

Liquid oxygen is a form of the element oxygen. It has a pale blue color and is strongly paramagnetism. Liquid oxygen has a density of 1.141 g/cm? and is moderately cryogenics ...
 (LOX) and kerosene
Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid....
 as propellants, and has one single-chamber RD-58
RD-58

The RD-58 is a rocket engine, developed in the 1960s by OKB-1, now RKK Energia. The engine was initially created to power the Block D stage of the Soviet Union's abortive N1 rocket....
 main engine. The LOX tank has a spherical shape; the kerosene tank is toroidal, inclined to 15 degrees for better fuel extraction, with the engine mounted in the center of torus. Tanks include the first pump stage for the engine; the main pump is mounted on the engine.

Block D weights 3,5 tons during liftoff, but some parts are jettisoned and the dry mass in space is 2.5 tons. It has 5.70 meters length and generates 83.300 kN thrust for 600 seconds burn time. Block D was modified as Block DM in 1974, with 11D-58S engine. The unit cost is $4 million.

Modifications


RKK Energia, the company that created Block D, used it as a platform for many modifications over many years for different purposes; for example, the main propulsion unit on Buran started as a modification of the Block D.

  • Block DM (1974) - Block D's modification for Earth-based orbits
  • Block DM-2 (1982) - Used (as recently as 2008) with Proton M for GLONASS
    GLONASS

    GLONASS is a radio-based satellite navigation system, developed by the former Soviet Union and now operated for the Russian government by the Russian Space Forces....
     launches
  • Block DM-3, DM-4 (1996)
  • Block DM-SL (1999, derivative of DM3) - used in Sea Launch
    Sea Launch

    Sea Launch is a spacecraft launch service that uses a mobile sea platform for equatorial launches of commercial Payload s on specialized Zenit 3SL rockets....
     missions as upper stage of Zenit 3SL rocket,


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