Soviet Moonshot
Encyclopedia
This article deals only with preparations for manned flight to the Moon by the USSR. For information about the unmanned spacecraft sent to the Moon by the USSR see Luna programme
Luna programme
The Luna programme , occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, each designed as either an orbiter or lander, and accomplished many firsts in space exploration...

.


The Soviet manned lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 to land a man on the Moon in competition with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Apollo program to achieve the same goal set publicly by President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 on May 25, 1961. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competition, but secretly pursued two programs in the 1960s: manned lunar flyby missions using Soyuz 7K-L1
Soyuz 7K-L1
The Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft was designed to launch men from the Earth to circle the Moon without going into lunar orbit in the context of the Soviet manned moon-flyby program in Moon race. It was based on the Soyuz 7K-OK with several components stripped out to reduce the vehicle weight...

 (Zond) spacecraft launched with the UR-500K (Proton) rocket
Proton rocket
Proton is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2011, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight...

, and a manned lunar landing using Soyuz 7K-L3
Soyuz 7K-L3
The Soyuz 7K-LOK, or simply LOK was a Soviet spacecraft designed to launch men from Earth to circle the moon and developed in parallel to the 7K-L1. The LOK would carry two cosmonauts into orbit around the Moon, acting as "mother" spacecraft for the LK Lander, which would land one member of the...

 and LK Lander
LK Lander
The LK was a Soviet lunar lander and counterpart of the American Lunar Module . The LK was to have landed up to two cosmonauts on the Moon...

 spacecraft launched with the N1 rocket. Following the dual American successes of the first manned lunar orbit on December 24-25, 1968 (Apollo 8
Apollo 8
Apollo 8, the second manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to Earth from another celestial...

) and the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969 (Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

), and a series of catastrophic N1 failures, both Soviet programs were eventually brought to an end: the Proton / Zond program was canceled in 1970, and the N1 / L3 program was terminated de-facto in 1974 and officially canceled in 1976. Details of both Soviet programs were kept secret until 1990, when the government allowed them to be published under the policy of glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...

.

Early concepts

Although the Soviet leadership had made public pronouncements about landing a man on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 and establishing a lunar base as early as 1961, serious plans were not made until several years later. Sergei Korolyov, the senior Soviet rocket engineer, was more interested in launching a heavy orbital station and in manned flights to Mars and Venus
TMK
TMK was the designation of a Soviet Union space exploration project to send a manned flight to Mars and Venus without landing....

. With this in mind Korolyov began the development of the super-heavy N-1 rocket with a 75 ton payload.

In its preliminary Moon plans, Korolyov's design bureau initially promoted the Soyuz
Soyuz spacecraft
Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...

 A-B-C circumlunar complex
Soyuz A
Sergei Korolev initially promoted the Soyuz A-B-V circumlunar complex concept in which a two-man craft Soyuz 7K would rendezvous with other components in Earth orbit to assemble a lunar excursion vehicle, the components being delivered by the proven R-7 rocket...

 concept under which a two-man spacecraft would rendezvous with other components in Earth orbit to assemble a lunar flyby excursion vehicle. The components would then be delivered by the proven middle R-7
R-7 Semyorka
The R-7 was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War, and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1961, but was never deployed operationally. A derivative, the R-7A, was deployed from 1960 to 1968...

 rocket. After developing the N1, beginning in 1963, Korolyov began to plan a Moon landing mission using two launches and docking. Later Korolyov managed to increase the payload of the N1 to 92-93 tons (by switching to liquid hydrogen in the upper stage(s) and increasing the number of engines in its first stage from 24 to 30), providing enough power to accomplish the mission with a single launch.

Another main space design bureau headed by Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey was a Soviet mechanics scientist and rocket engineer from Ukraine.-Early life:Chelomey was born in Siedlce, Russian Empire into a Ukrainian family...

 proposed a competing cislunar orbiting mission using a heavy UR-500K rocket (later renamed the Proton rocket
Proton rocket
Proton is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2011, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight...

) and a two-man LK-1 spacecraft. Later, Chelomei also proposed a Moon landing program with a super-heavy UR-700 rocket and a LK-700(LK-3) spacecraft.

The Soviet government issued a response to the American Apollo challenge after three years. According to the first government decree about the Soviet Manned moon programs (' On Work on the Exploration of the Moon and Mastery of Space '), adopted in August 1964, Chelomei was instructed to develop a Moon flyby program with a projected first flight by the end of 1966, and Korolyov was instructed to develop the Moon landing program with a first flight by the end of 1967.

Following the change from Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

 to Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev  – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...

 in 1964, the Soviet government in September 1965 assigned the flyby program to Korolyov, who redesigned the cislunar mission to use his own L1 (Zond) spacecraft and Chelomei's Proton rocket.

Korolyov organized full scale development of both programs, but died after surgery in 1966. According to a government decree of February 1967, the first manned flyby was scheduled for mid-1967, and the first manned landing for the end of 1968. Korolyov's death, along with various technical and administrative reasons, as well as a lack of financial support, resulted in both programs being delayed.

Launch schedules

As of 1967, the L1/L3 launch schedules were:

L1
2P: Develop Block D stage (February or March 1967)
3P: Develop Block D stage (March 1967)
4L: Unmanned lunar flyby (May 1967)
5L: Unmanned lunar flyby (June 1967)
6L: Manned lunar flyby (June or July 1967)
7L: Manned lunar flybys (August 1967)
8L: Manned lunar flybys (August 1967)
9L: Manned lunar flybys (September 1967)
10L: Manned lunar flybys (September 1967)
11L: Manned lunar flybys (October 1967)
12L: Manned lunar flybys (October 1967)
13L: Reserve spacecraft


L3
3L: Develop LV & Blocks G&D (September 1967)
4L: Reserve
5L: LOK/LK unmanned (December 1967)
6L: LOK/LK unmanned (February 1968)
7L: Manned LOK/unmanned LK (April 1968)
8L: Manned LOK/unmanned LK (June 1968)
9L: Piloted LOK/unmanned LK with LK landing on Moon (August 1968)
10L: First men land on moon (September 1968)
11L: Reserve
12L: Reserve

Cosmonauts

In 1966, two cosmonaut training groups were formed. One group was commanded by Vladimir Komarov and included Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....

, and was to prepare for qualification flights of the Soyuz in Earth orbit and a Proton launched cis-lunar mission (Gagarin, Nikolayev, Komarov, Bykovskiy, Khrunov; Engineer-Cosmonauts: Gorbatko, Grechko, Sevastyanov, Kubasov, Volkov). Komarov later died in the Soyuz 1
Soyuz 1
Soyuz 1 was a manned spaceflight of the Soviet space program. Launched into orbit on April 23, 1967 carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1 was the first flight of the Soyuz spacecraft...

 spaceflight when his parachute malfunctioned causing his capsule to smash into the earth at high speed. The second group was led by Alexei Leonov and concentrated on the landing mission (Commanders: Leonov, Popovich, Belyayev, Volynov, Klimuk; Engineer-cosmonauts: Makarov, Voronov, Rukavishnikov, Artyukhin). As a result, Leonov has the strongest claim to have been the Soviets' first choice for first man on the moon.

After Komarov's death in Soyuz 1
Soyuz 1
Soyuz 1 was a manned spaceflight of the Soviet space program. Launched into orbit on April 23, 1967 carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1 was the first flight of the Soyuz spacecraft...

 in 1967, Gagarin was taken out of training and the groups were restructured. Despite the Soyuz 1 setback, the Soviets successfully rehearsed the automated docking of two unmanned Soyuz craft in Earth orbit in 1968 and with the manned Soyuz 4
Soyuz 4
Soyuz 4 was launched on January 14, 1969. On board the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft was cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft, and return to Earth...

 and Soyuz 5
Soyuz 5
Soyuz 5 was a Soyuz mission using the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on January 15, 1969, which docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit...

 joint mission in early 1969 tested the other key mission elements.

A total of 18 missions were related to the N1-L3 project. For details, see the table at the bottom of the article.

Moon flyby UR-500K(Proton)/L1(Zond) program

Launched by a 3-staged Proton rocket, the L1(Zond) was a spacecraft from the Soyuz family
Soyuz spacecraft
Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...

 and consisted of two or three modified modules of the main craft Soyuz 7K-OK
Soyuz 7K-OK
The manned Soyuz spacecraft can be classified into design generations. Soyuz 1 through Soyuz 11 were first-generation vehicles, carrying a crew of up to three without spacesuits and distinguished from those following by their bent solar panels and their use of the Igla automatic docking navigation...

 with a total weight of 5.5 tons. The Apollo orbital spacecraft (command ship) for the lunar flyby also had two modules (command and service) but was five times heavier, carried a crew of three and entered lunar orbit, whereas the L1 (Zond) performed a flight around the Moon and came back on a return trajectory. Planned for 8 December 1968 for priority over the US, a first manned mission of the L1 (Zond) was cancelled due to insufficient readiness of the capsule and rocket. After Apollo 8
Apollo 8
Apollo 8, the second manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to Earth from another celestial...

 won the first (lunar flyby) phase of the Moon Race at the end of 1968, the Soviet leadership lost political interest in the L1 (Zond) program. A few reserve units of L1 (Zond) made unpiloted flights, but by the end of 1970 this program was cancelled.

Moon landing N1/L3 program


The final plan for a manned landing adopted the same method of single launch and lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous is a key concept for human landing on the Moon and returning to Earth.In a LOR mission a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar module travel together into lunar orbit. The lunar module then independently descends to the lunar surface. After completion of the mission there, a...

 as the Apollo project, but had differences in some details and technical data. Despite the fact that the planned Soviet Moon expedition was carried at a single launch like Apollo, for mission safety, some two to three weeks before the manned mission, an unmanned "L3 complex" and two Lunokhod
Lunokhod programme
Lunokhod was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. The 1969 Lunokhod 1A was destroyed during launch, the 1970 Lunokhod 1 and the 1973 Lunokhod 2 landed on the moon and the 1977 Lunokhod was never launched...

 automated moon rovers would be sent to the Moon. They worked as radio beacons, with the LK being used as a reserve "escape" craft to return from the Moon, and the Lunokhods were additionally equipped with manual controls for the cosmonauts.

The N1 rocket carried the L3 Moon expedition complex that consisted of two spacecraft (LOK and LK) and two (Block G and Block D
Block D
Blok D is an upper stage used on Soviet and later Russian expendable launch systems, including the N1, Proton-K and Zenit. There were plans to use it for some other rockets as well ....

) boosters.

A variant of the Soyuz craft, the "Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl" (LOK) command ship, carried two men, and was consisted of three modules like the regular Soyuz 7K-OK, but was heavier by a few tons. The 7K-OK was half the mass of the three-man Apollo orbital craft (command ship). The "Lunniy Korabl" (LK) carried one cosmonaut, so in the Soviet expedition one cosmonaut alone would land on Moon, while in Apollo two would. The mass of the LK was 40% the mass the Apollo lunar lander.

The total mass of the L3 complex placed in LEO
Low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...

 by the N1 was 93 tons compared to Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...

's 137 tons. The total mass of the LOK and LK was 40% of the full Apollo complex, but was equivalent to the L3 complex without Block G. The booster for the LEO toward the Moon for the Apollo vehicle was provided by the last stage of the Saturn V, while for the Block D, LOK and LK, this was to be provided by Block G of the same L3 complex.

During the L3 complex's journey to the Moon, there was no need to undock and redock the orbital and landing craft as in Apollo, because the cosmonaut would transfer from the LOK to LK by a "spacewalk", while in Apollo this operation was executed by an internal passage.

Block D slowed the LOK and LK into lunar orbit, while in the Apollo complex this phase was undertaken by firing the engine on the service module (the Apollo complex traveled with the Command Module and Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) facing back towards the Earth) to slow the complex and enter lunar orbit.

Once in orbit, the LK with Block D would separate from the LOK and descend toward the surface of Moon using the Block D engine. After Block D exhausted its fuel, the LK was to separate and complete landing using its own engine.

On the Moon, the cosmonaut would undertake moonwalks on foot and by Lunokhods, collecting rocks and plant the Soviet flag.

After a few hours on the lunar surface, the LK's engine would fire again using its landing structure as a launch pad, as with Apollo. To save weight, the engine used for landing would also blast the LK back to lunar orbit for an automated docking with the LOK. The cosmonaut then would spacewalk back to the LOK carrying the Moon rock samples, with the LK being cast off. After this, the LOK would fire its rocket for the return to Earth.

After the US won the final (Moon-landing) phase and the whole of the Moon Race in 1969, the justification for the Soviet lunar landing program evaporated, although development and testing continued into the early 1970s. In 1970–1971 the LK was completely ready after three unmanned test flights on LEO, and the LOK was launched once. The Krechet
Krechet
The Krechet-94 is a space suit model developed for lunar excursion during the Soviet manned lunar program. It was designed by NPP Zvezda. Development began in 1967, concurrently with the Orlan suit for microgravity spacewalks...

 lunar spacesuit and other support systems were tested. But four N1 test launches were attempted and all were failures, despite engineering improvements after each crash. The second launch attempt on 3 July 1969, just 13 days prior to the launch of Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

, was a catastrophic failure which destroyed both the rocket and the launch complex, and this delayed the N1-L3 program for two years more. If a planned fifth test in autumn 1974 and following tests of the N1 were successful, a few Soviet manned N1-L3 missions would have been launched in 1976–1980. To gain technical and scientific interest in the program, the modified multi-launched N1F-L3M missions (with significantly more time spent on the Moon's surface than with Apollo) and moonbase Zvezda
Zvezda (moonbase)
Zvezda moonbase , also DLB Lunar Base — plan and project of 1962—1974 of Soviet manned moonbase as successor N1-L3 manned lunar expedition program. It was the first detailed such project more developed than early US Horizon and Lunex projects and later Apollo Lunar Base Wernher von Braun and NASA...

, first detailed such project with developed mockups of expedition vehicles and surface modules. laterly proposed "Vulkan-LEK" project were not adopted for economic reasons. As some recompense and as a replacement for the manned landing program, the Soviets fulfilled a program of automated delivery of lunar soil and automated moon rovers (Lunokhods).

Soviet manned space efforts subsequently concentrated on the development of space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

s and on several design and ground preparatory processes for a Mars mission, which continues to the present day, but has unclear objectives. The launch pad and MIK of N1 was redesigned for the Energia-Buran shuttle program. Five LK in various states of construction remain with some units being kept in the designer's and producer's company museums.

See also

  • Apollo program
  • Moon exploration
    Moon landing
    A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...

  • First on the Moon
    First on the Moon
    First on the Moon is a 2005 Russian mockumentary about a 1930s Soviet landing on the Moon. The film, which went on to win many awards, was the debut of the director Aleksey Fedorchenko.The film is not related to the actual Soviet Moonshot program....

    - a Russian mockumentary
    Mockumentary
    A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

  • Soviet space program conspiracy accusations
    Soviet space program conspiracy accusations
    Lost Cosmonauts, or Phantom Cosmonauts, is a conspiracy theory alleging that cosmonauts entered outer space, but without their existence having been acknowledged by either the Soviet or Russian space authorities....


External links

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