Soviet space program

Soviet Space Program

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Soviet space program

The Soviet space program consisted of initiatives within the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
by competing design groups. Being primarily a military program, it was classified. Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Korolyov

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The Soviet space program consisted of initiatives within the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov , , , was the head Soviet Union rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race between the United States of America and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s....
(also transliterated as Korolev) was the head of the principal design group; his official title was "chief designer" (a standard title for similar positions in USSR). Unlike the early US space program, which in the 1950s was developed predominantly by scientists and rocket engineers from Nazi Germany, immigrated in United States after World War II and was based on German technological experience, the rocket and space program of USSR after 1955 (see Helmut Grottrup) was performed mainly by Soviet engineers and scientists and was based on some unique Soviet and Imperial Russian theoreticall developments (Tsiolkovsky).

The Soviet Space program wasn't open and in public view, announcements of the outcomes of missions were delayed until success was certain and failures were sometimes kept secret. Ultimately, as a result Gorbachev's policy of 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 1980s....
, many facts about the space program (which was heavily connected to the military) were declassified.

The Soviet Space Program was dissolved with the fall of the Soviet Union, with Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
and Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
becoming its immediate heirs. Russia continued its program by creating the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, now known as the Russian Federal Space Agency

Russian Federal Space Agency

The Russian Federal Space Agency , RKA, or RSA, formerly the Russian Aviation and Space Agency , is the government agency responsible for Russia's space science programme and general aerospace research....
(RKA), while Ukraine created the National Space Agency of Ukraine

National Space Agency of Ukraine

The National Space Agency of Ukraine is the Government of Ukraine agency responsible for space policy and programs.NSAU is a civil body in charge of co-ordinating the efforts of government installations, research, and industrial companies ....
(NSAU).

Origins

The theory of space exploration

Space exploration

Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
was well established in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

File:Russian Emperor Flag.jpgFile:Romanov Flag.svgThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917....
before the First World War from the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was an Imperial Russian and Soviet Union rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautics. He is considered by many as a father of theoretical astronautics....
, who published pioneering papers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and in 1929 even introduced the concept of the multistaged rocket. Similarly the practical aspects were established by early experiments carried out by the reactive propulsion study group, GIRD

Gird

Gird is a list of regions of India of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. It includes the districts of Bhind District, Gwalior District, Morena District, Sheopur District, and Shivpuri District....
in the 1920s and 1930s, where such pioneers as German engineer Friedrich Zander

Friedrich Zander

Friedrich Zander , often transliterated Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander, was a pioneer of rocketry and spaceflight in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union....
and Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov , , , was the head Soviet Union rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race between the United States of America and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s....
worked.

On August 18, 1933 GIRD, launched the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket Gird-09, and on November 25, 1933 the first hybrid-fueled rocket GIRD-X. In 1940-41 another advance in the reactive propulsion field was made: the development and serial production of the Katyusha

Katyusha

Katyusha multiple rocket launchers are a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. Compared to other artillery, these multiple rocket launchers deliver a devastating amount of explosives to an area target quickly, but with lower accuracy and requiring a longer time to reload....
multiple rocket launcher

Multiple rocket launcher

A multiple rocket launcher is a type of unguided rocket artillery system. Like other rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers are less accurate and have a much lower rate of fire than batteries of traditional artillery guns....
, which was feared by the Nazis. Further advances were made through reverse engineering of artifacts seized at the end of the Second World War, in particular drawings obtained from the V-2

V-2 rocket

The V-2 rocket was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight, the progenitor of all modern rockets....
production sites (after the Americans secretly moved most German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
scientists to the US - see Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Joint Intelligence Objectives AgencyOffice_of_Strategic_Services recruitment of scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S....
along with several V-2 rocket

V-2 rocket

The V-2 rocket was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight, the progenitor of all modern rockets....
s).

Under the direction of Dimitri Ustinov, designer and engineer Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Korolyov

Helmut Gröttrup

Helmut Gr?ttrup was a Germans electrical engineer and assistant of Wernher von Braun in the V-2 rocket-project. Gr?ttrup was responsible for the guidance system....
, they built a replica of the V-2

V-2 rocket

The V-2 rocket was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight, the progenitor of all modern rockets....
called the R-1

R-1 (missile)

The R-1 rocket was a copy of the Germany V-2 rocket manufactured by the Soviet Union. Even though it was a copy, it was manufactured using Soviet industrial plants and gave the Soviets valuable experience which later enabled the USSR to construct its own much more capable rockets....
, although the weight of Soviet nuclear warheads required a more powerful booster. Korolyov was dedicated to the liquid-fuelled cryogenic rockets he had been experimenting with in the late 1930s. Ultimately, this work resulted in the design of the R-7 Semyorka

R-7 Semyorka

The R-7 Semyorka was the world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile and was deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War from 1959 to 1968....
intercontinental ballistic missile

Intercontinental ballistic missile

An intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, is a long-range ballistic missile typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery, that is, delivering one or more nuclear weapon....
(ICBM) which was successfully tested in August 1957. Because of its global range and large payload (approximately 5 tons), the reliable R7

R7 or R-7 may be:* R7 or R7A , a model of New York City Subway rolling stock manufactured from 1937 to 1938* R7 Quad, a golf club* R-7 , the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, created by the Soviet Union...
was not only effective as a strategic delivery system for nuclear warheads, but also as an excellent basis for a space vehicle.

The Soviet space program was tied to the USSR's Five-Year Plan

Five-Year Plan (USSR)

The Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the USSR were a series of nation-wide centralized exercises in rapid economic development in the Soviet Union....
s and from the start was reliant on support from the Soviet military. In January 1956, plans were approved for Earth-orbiting satellites to gain knowledge of space, (Sputnik), and four unmanned military reconnaissance satellites, (Zenit). Further planned developments called for a manned Earth orbit flight by 1964 and an unmanned lunar mission at an earlier date. After the first Sputnik proved to be a successful propaganda coup, Korolyov was charged to accelerate the manned program, the design of which was combined with the Zenit program to produce the Vostok spacecraft

Vostok spacecraft

The Vostok was a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union's space programme for human spaceflight....
.

Following the death of Korolyov in 1966, Kerim Kerimov

Kerim Kerimov

Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov was an Azerbaijani Soviet Union rocket scientist, one of the founders of the Soviet space industry, and for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program....
, who was formerly an architect of Vostok 1

Vostok 1

Vostok 1 was the first human spaceflight. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961, taking into space Yuri Gagarin, a astronaut from the Soviet Union....
, was appointed Chairman of the State Commission on Piloted Flights and headed it for the next 25 years (1966–1991). He supervised every stage of development and operation of both manned space complexes as well as unmanned interplanetary stations for the former Soviet Union. One of Kerimov's greatest achievements was the launch of Mir

Mir

Mir was a Soviet Union orbital station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a Space station#Modular....
in 1986.

Firsts

Two days after the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
announced its intention to launch an artificial satellite, on July 31, 1956, the Soviet Union announced its intention to do the same. Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1 was the world's first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into a low altitude elliptical orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program....
was launched on October 4, 1957, beating the United States and stunning people all over the world.

The Soviet space program pioneered many aspects of space exploration:

1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka
R-7 Semyorka

The R-7 Semyorka was the world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile and was deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War from 1959 to 1968....
1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1 was the world's first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into a low altitude elliptical orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program....
1957: First animal to enter Earth orbit, the dog Laika
Laika

Laika was a Soviet space dogs who became the first living mammal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital casualty. Little was known about the impact of space flight on living things at the time Laika's mission was launched....
on Sputnik 2
Sputnik 2

Sputnik 2 was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. It was a 4 meters high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 meters ....
1959: First firing of a rocket in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's orbit, Luna 1
Luna 1

Luna programme 1 , also known as Mechta was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna programme of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon....
1959: First data communications, or telemetry
Telemetry

Telemetry is a technology that allows the remote measurement and reporting of information of interest to the system designer or operator. The word is derived from Greek language roots tele = remote, and metron = measure....
, to and from outer space
Outer space

Outer space comprises the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. Outer space is used to distinguish it from airspace and terrestrial locations....
, Luna 1
Luna 1

Luna programme 1 , also known as Mechta was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna programme of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon....
.
1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon
Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
, first man-made object in Solar orbit, Luna 1
Luna 1

Luna programme 1 , also known as Mechta was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna programme of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon....
1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2
Luna 2

Luna 2 was the second of the Soviet Union Luna programme spacecraft launched in the direction of the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon....
1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
Luna 3

The Soviet space probe Luna 3 was the third spacecraft sent successfully to the Moon, and it was an early feat in the human exploration of outer space....
1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5
Sputnik 5

Sputnik 5 was the first spaceflight to send animals into orbit and return them safely back to Earth. Launched on August 19, 1960 it paved the way for the first human orbital flight less than eight months later with Vostok 1....
.
1960: First probe launched to Mars, Marsnik 1
1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1
Venera 1

On February 12 1961, 00:34:36 Coordinated Universal Time, the first planetary probe was launched to Venus by the Soviet Union. The Venus-1 Automatic Interplanetary Station, or Venera 1, was a 643.5 kg probe consisting of a cylindrical body 1.05 meter in diameter topped by a dome, totaling 2.035 meters in height....
1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin , Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet Union cosmonaut. On 12 April 1961, he became the first human in space and the first to orbit the Earth....
on Vostok 1
Vostok 1

Vostok 1 was the first human spaceflight. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961, taking into space Yuri Gagarin, a astronaut from the Soviet Union....
, Vostok programme
Vostok programme

The Vostok programme was a Soviet Union human spaceflight project that succeeded in putting a person into Earth orbit for the first time. The programme developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design....
1961: First person to spend over a day in space Gherman Titov
Gherman Titov

Gherman Stepanovich Titov was a Soviet Union astronaut and the second human to orbit the Earth....
, Vostok 2
Vostok 2

Vostok 2 was a Soviet Union space mission which carried astronaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day in order to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body....
(also first person to sleep in space).
1962: First dual manned spaceflight and approach, Vostok 3
Vostok 3

Vostok 3 was a mission in the Soviet space program.Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were launched a day apart, and together these missions marked the first time that more than one manned spacecraft was in orbit at the same time, giving Soviet Union mission controllers the opportunity of learning how to manage this scenario....
and Vostok 4
Vostok 4

Vostok 4 was a mission in the Soviet space program. It was launched a day after Vostok 3 with astronaut Pavel Popovich on board - the first time that more than one manned spacecraft were in orbit at the same time....
1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova , is a retired Soviet Union astronaut and was the first woman to fly in outer space, aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963....
, Vostok 6
Vostok 6

Vostok 6 was the first human spaceflight mission to carry a woman, astronaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space. Data was collected on the female body's reaction to spaceflight....
1964: First multi-man crew (3), Voskhod 1
Voskhod 1

Voskhod 1 was the first spaceflight to carry more than one person into space, the first flight without space suits, the first to carry a scientist and a physician into space, and also set an altitude record of ....
1965: First EVA
Extra-vehicular activity

Extra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon ....
, by Aleksei Leonov
Aleksei Leonov

Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov , , is a retired Soviet Union/Russian astronaut and Soviet Air Forces General who, on March 18, 1965, became the first human to Extra-vehicular activity....
, Voskhod 2
Voskhod 2

Voskhod 2 was a Soviet Union manned space mission in March 1965. It established another space milestone when one of the astronauts on board became the first person to "Extra-vehicular activity"....
1965: First probe to hit another planet (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....
), Venera 3
Venera 3

Venera 3 was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on November 16, 1965 at 04:19 Coordinated Universal Time from Baikonur, Kazakhstan....
1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the moon, Luna 9
Luna 9

Luna 9 , also known as Lunik 9 , was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna program. On February 3, 1966 the Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a Moon Soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth....
1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
Luna 10

Luna 10 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 10.The Luna 10 spacecraft was launched towards the Moon from an Earth orbiting platform on March 31, 1966....
1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188. (Until 2006, this had remained the only major space achievement that the US had not duplicated.)
1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4
Soyuz 4

Soyuz 4 was launched on January 14, 1969. On board 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 spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on January 15, 1969, which docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit....
1970: First samples automatically returned to Earth from another body, Luna 16
Luna 16

Luna 16 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunnik 16 .Luna program 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample to Earth....
1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1
Lunokhod 1

Lunokhod 1 was the first of two unmanned lunar rover s landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17....
1970: First data received from the surface of another planet (Venus), Venera 7
Venera 7

The Venera 7 was a Soviet Union spacecraft part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed on the surface, it became the first man-made spacecraft to successfully Landings on other planets and to transmit data from there back to Earth....
1971: First space station, Salyut 1
Salyut 1

Salyut 1 was the first space station of any kind, and the first Soviet space station. It was launched on April 19, 1971. Its first crew launched in Soyuz 10 but was unable to board it due to a failure in the docking mechanism; its second crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on board for 23 productive days....
1971: First probe to orbit another planet (Mars), first probe to reach surface of Mars, Mars 2
Mars 2

The Mars program was a series of Mars unmanned landers and orbiters launched by the Soviet Union in the early 1970s.The Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with an orbiter and an attached lander; they were the first human artifacts to impact the surface of Mars....
1975: First probe to orbit Venus, first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 9
Venera 9

Venera 9 was a USSR unmanned space mission to Venus. It consisted of an orbiter and a lander. It was launched on June 8, 1975 02:38:00 Coordinated Universal Time and weighed 4,936 kg ....
1984: First woman to walk in space
Extra-vehicular activity

Extra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon ....
, Svetlana Savitskaya
Svetlana Savitskaya

Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya is a former Soviet Union female aviator and astronaut who flew the Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space some 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova....
(Salyut 7
Salyut 7

Salyut 7 was the final space station launched into Low Earth orbit as part of the Soviet Union's Salyut Program. Launched on April 19, 1982, on a Proton from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the USSR, Salyut 7 was part of the transition from "monolithic" to "modular" space stations, acting as a testbed for docking...
space station)
1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir
Mir

Mir was a Soviet Union orbital station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a Space station#Modular....
and Salyut 7
Salyut 7

Salyut 7 was the final space station launched into Low Earth orbit as part of the Soviet Union's Salyut Program. Launched on April 19, 1982, on a Proton from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the USSR, Salyut 7 was part of the transition from "monolithic" to "modular" space stations, acting as a testbed for docking...
)
1986: First permanently manned space station, Mir
Mir

Mir was a Soviet Union orbital station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a Space station#Modular....
, which orbit
ORBit

ORBit is a Common Object Request Broker Architecture 2.4 compliant Object Request Broker . It features mature C , C++ and Python bindings, and less developed bindings for Perl, Lisp , Pascal , Ruby , and Tcl....
ed the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
from 1986 until 2001
1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov
Vladimir Titov

Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov , Colonel, Russian Air Force, Ret., and former Russian astronaut was born January 1, 1947, in Sretensk, in the Chita Region of Russia....
and Musa Manarov
Musa Manarov

Musa Khiramanovich Manarov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR on March 22, 1951.He was a colonel at the Soviet Air Force and graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute with an engineering diploma in 1974....
on board of TM-4 - Mir
Mir

Mir was a Soviet Union orbital station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a Space station#Modular....
In addition, except for the period following Korolyov's death in 1965 through the end of the Skylab
Skylab

Skylab was the first space station the United States launched into orbit, and the second space station ever visited by a human crew. The 100 ton space station was in Earth's orbit from 1973 to 1979, and it was visited by crews three times in 1973 and 1974....
program in 1974, virtually all manned duration records have been set by Russians, largely because of the Salyut/Mir series of space stations.

Internal competition

Unlike the American Space program which had NASA as a single coordinating structure directed by its Administrator, James Webb

James E. Webb

James Edwin Webb was the second administrator of NASA, serving from 14 February 1961 to 7 October 1968....
through most of the 1960s, the USSR's program was split between several competing design groups led by Sergey Korolyov

Sergey Korolyov

Mikhail Yangel

Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel was a leading missile designer in the Soviet Union.His career started as an aviation engineer, after graduating from Moscow Aviation Institute in 1937....
, Valentin Glushko

Valentin Glushko

Valentin Petrovich Glushko was a Soviet Union engineer, and one of the three principal Soviet "Chief Designers" of spacecraft and rockets during the Soviet/American Space Race....
and Vladimir Chelomei

Vladimir Chelomei

File:Vladimir Chelomei.jpgVladimir Nikolayevich Chelomei was a Soviet Union mechanics scientist and rocket engineer....
.

Following the remarkable successes of the Sputniks between 1957 and 1961 and Vostoks between 1961 and 1964, Korolyov's OKB-1 design bureau was gaining influence and planned to move forward with the Soyuz

Soyuz spacecraft

Soyuz ; English: Union) is a series of spacecraft designed for the Soviet space program by the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia....
craft and N-1

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....
heavy booster that would be the basis of a permanent manned space station and manned exploration of the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
. However, Ustinov directed him to focus on near-Earth missions using the very reliable Voskhod spacecraft

Voskhod spacecraft

The Voskhod was a spacecraft built by the Soviet Union's space program for human spaceflight . It was a development of and a follow-on to the Vostok spacecraft....
, a modified Vostok, as well as on interplanetary unmanned missions to nearby planets 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....
and 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....
. ]]

Yangel had been Korolyov's assistant but with the support of the military was given his own design bureau in 1954 to work primarily on the military space program. This had the stronger rocket engine design team including the use of hypergolic fuels but following the Nedelin catastrophe

Nedelin catastrophe

The Nedelin catastrophe or Nedelin disaster was a launch pad accident that occurred on 24 October 1960, at Baikonur Cosmodrome during the development of the Soviet Union R-16 Intercontinental ballistic missile....
in 1960 Yangel was directed to concentrate on ICBM development. He also continued to develop his own heavy booster designs similar to Korolyov's N-1 both for military applications and for cargo flights into space to build future space stations.

Glushko was the chief rocket engine designer but had a personal friction with Korolyov and refused to develop the large single chamber cryogenic engines that Korolyov needed to build heavy boosters.

Chelomei benefited from the patronage of Khrushchev and in 1960 was given the plum jobs of developing a rocket to send a manned craft around the moon and a manned military space station - but with limited experience his development was slow.

At one stage in the early 1960s the Soviet space program was actively developing 30 projects for launchers and spacecraft. With the fall of Krushchev in 1964 Korolyov was given complete control of the manned space program.

After Korolyov

Korolyov died in January 1966 following a routine operation that uncovered colon cancer and from complications from heart disease and severe hemorraging. Leadership of the OKB-1 design bureau was given to Vasili Mishin, who had the task of sending a man around the moon in 1967 and landing a man on it in 1968.

Mishin lacked Korolyov's political authority and still faced competition from other chief designers. Under pressure Mishin approved the launch of the Soyuz 1

Soyuz 1

Soyuz 1 was part of the Soviet Union's space program and was launched into orbit on April 23, 1967, carrying a single astronaut, Colonel Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, who was killed when the spacecraft crashed during its return to Earth....
flight in 1967, even though the craft had never been successfully tested on an unmanned flight. The mission launched with known design problems and ended with the vehicle crashing to the ground, killing Vladimir Komarov. This was the first in-flight fatality.

Following this disaster and under new pressures, Mishin developed a drinking problem. The Soviets were narrowly beaten in sending the first manned flight around the moon in 1968 by Apollo 8

Apollo 8

Apollo 8 was the first manned space voyage to achieve a velocity sufficient to allow escape from the gravitational field of planet Earth; the first to escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first manned voyage to return to planet Earth from another celestial body....
, but Mishin pressed ahead with development of the problematic 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....
in the hope that the Americans would have a setback, leaving enough time to make the N-1 workable and land a man on the moon first. There was a success with the joint flight of Soyuz 4

Soyuz 4

Soyuz 4 was launched on January 14, 1969. On board 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 spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on January 15, 1969, which docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit....
in January 1969 that tested the rendezvous, docking and crew transfer techniques that would be used for the landing, and the LK 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....
was tested successfully in earth orbit. But after four unmanned test launches of the N-1 ended in failure, the heavy booster was abandoned and with it any chance of the Soviets landing men on the moon in a single launch.

Following this setback, Chelomei convinced Ustinov to approve a program in 1970 to advance his Almaz

Almaz

The Almaz program was a series of military space stations launched by the Soviet Union under cover of the civilian Salyut DOS-17K program after 1971....
military space station as a means of beating the US's announced Skylab

Skylab

Skylab was the first space station the United States launched into orbit, and the second space station ever visited by a human crew. The 100 ton space station was in Earth's orbit from 1973 to 1979, and it was visited by crews three times in 1973 and 1974....
. Mishin remained in control of the project that became Salyut

Salyut

The Salyut program was the first space station program undertaken by the Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of nine single-module space stations launched over a period of eleven years from 1971 to 1982....
but the decision backed by Mishin to fly a three-man crew without pressure suits rather than a two-man crew with suits to Salyut 1

Salyut 1

Salyut 1 was the first space station of any kind, and the first Soviet space station. It was launched on April 19, 1971. Its first crew launched in Soyuz 10 but was unable to board it due to a failure in the docking mechanism; its second crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on board for 23 productive days....
in 1971 proved fatal when the re-entry capsule depressurized killing the crew on their return to Earth. Mishin was removed from many projects, with Chelomei regaining control of Salyut. After working with NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
on the Apollo Soyuz Test Project, the Soviet leadership decided a new management approach was needed and in 1974 the N-1 was cancelled and Mishin dismissed. A single design bureau was created NPO Energia with Glushko as chief designer.

Failures

The Soviet program suffered various incidents and setbacks.

The Soviet space program was tied to the central planning of the USSR's five-year plans. This made it difficult for the Chief Designers to respond in 1961 to the US launching a crash program for a manned lunar landing as the next five-year plan would not start until 1964. Centralised planning and the concentration on production targets also made it difficult for middle management and engineers to highlight defects in equipment leading to poor quality control.

The Soviet space program produced the first cosmonaut fatality on March 23, 1961 when Valentin Bondarenko

Valentin Bondarenko

Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko was a Soviet Union fighter pilot and cosmonaut with a Ukrainians background. He died during a training accident in 1961....
died in a fire within a low pressure, high oxygen atmosphere.

The Voskhod program was cancelled after two manned flights owing to the change of Soviet leadership and the near fatality of the second mission. Had the planned further flights gone ahead they could have given the Soviet space program further 'firsts' including a long duration flight of 20 days, a spacewalk by a woman and an untethered spacewalk.

The deaths of Korolyov, Komarov (in the Soyuz 1

Soyuz 1

Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin , Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet Union cosmonaut. On 12 April 1961, he became the first human in space and the first to orbit the Earth....
(on routine fighter jet mission) within two years of each other understandably had some negative impact on the Soviet program.

The Soviets continued striving for the first lunar mission with the huge N-1 rocket which exploded on each of four unmanned tests. The first exploded in midair. The second had a very complicated loss: as the rocket launched, all of its engines shut down because of a single small bolt that had been sucked into a fuel pump. A few engines continued to fire, but they were not enough, and the crash was the worst in the history of the Soviet space program. The last two suffered similar losses to the first one. The Americans won the race to land men on the moon with Apollo 11

Apollo 11

The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Apollo program and the third human voyage to the Moon....
in July 20, 1969.

On April 5, 1975, the second stage of a Soyuz rocket carrying 2 cosmonauts to the Salyut 4

Salyut 4

Salyut 4 was a Salyut space station launched on December 26, 1974 into an orbit with an apogee of 355 km, a perigee of 343 km and an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees....
space station

Space station

A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live in outer space. So far only low earth orbit stations are implemented, also known as orbital stations....
malfunctioned, resulting in the first manned launch abort. The cosmonauts were carried several thousand miles downrange and became worried that they would land in China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, which the Soviet Union was then having difficult relations with. The capsule hit a mountain, sliding down a slope and almost slid off a cliff; fortunately the parachute lines snagged on trees and kept this from happening. As it was, the two suffered severe injuries and the commander, Lazerev, never flew again.

On March 18, 1980 a Vostok rocket

Vostok rocket

The Vostok rocket was a derivative of the Soviet Union R-7 rocket ICBM designed for the human spaceflight Vostok programme but later used for other satellite launches....
exploded on its launch pad during a fueling operation killing 48 people.

In the summer of 1981 Kosmos-434, which had been launched in 1971, was about to re-enter. To allay fears that the spacecraft carried nuclear materials, a spokesperson from the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured the Australian government on August 26, 1981 that the satellite was "an experimental lunar cabin". This was one of the first admissions by the Soviet Union that it had ever engaged in a manned lunar spaceflight program.

In September 1983, a Soyuz rocket being launched to carry cosmonauts to the Salyut 7

Salyut 7

Salyut 7 was the final space station launched into Low Earth orbit as part of the Soviet Union's Salyut Program. Launched on April 19, 1982, on a Proton from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the USSR, Salyut 7 was part of the transition from "monolithic" to "modular" space stations, acting as a testbed for docking...
space station exploded on the pad, causing the Soyuz capsule's abort system to engage, saving the two cosmonauts on board.

The Soviet space program produced the Space Shuttle Buran

Shuttle Buran

The Buran spacecraft , GRAU index 11F35 K1, was the only fully completed and operational space shuttle vehicle from the Soviet Buran program....
based on the Energia

Energia

The Energia rocket was a Soviet Union rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran ....
launcher. Energia would be used as the base for a manned Mars mission. Buran was intended to operate in support of large space based military platforms as a response first to the US Space Shuttle and then the Strategic Defense Initiative

Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear weapon ballistic missiles....
. By the time the system was operational, in 1988, strategic arms reduction treaties and the end of the Cold War made Buran redundant. Several vehicles were built, but only one flew an unmanned test flight; it was found too expensive to operate as a civilian launcher.

See also the complete list of space disasters.

Projects

Completed

The Soviet space program has undertaken a number of projects, including:

Almaz
Almaz

The Almaz program was a series of military space stations launched by the Soviet Union under cover of the civilian Salyut DOS-17K program after 1971....
space stations
Buran
Shuttle Buran

The Buran spacecraft , GRAU index 11F35 K1, was the only fully completed and operational space shuttle vehicle from the Soviet Buran program....
shuttle
Cosmos
Cosmos (satellite)

Cosmos is the name of a series of satellites which were launched by the Soviet Union and are being launched now by Russia. The first of them was launched on March 16 1962....
satellites
Energia
Energia

The Energia rocket was a Soviet Union rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran ....
Foton
Foton

Foton is the project name of two series of Russia science satellite programs. Although Unmanned space mission, the design was adapted from the manned Vostok spacecraft capsule....
N1-L3 Manned Moon landing program
Luna Moon probe program
Mars probe program
Mars probe program

The Mars program was a series of Mars unmanned landers and orbiters launched or attempted to launch by the Soviet Union in the 1960s-1970s....
Meteor meteorological satellites
Meteor (satellite)

The Meteor craft are weather observation satellites launched by the USSR. The Meteor satellites were designed to monitor atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures, humidity, radiation, sea ice conditions, snow-cover, and clouds....
Molniya
Molniya (satellite)

Molniya was a military communications satellite system used by the Soviet Union. The satellites were placed into highly Orbital eccentricity elliptical orbits known as Molniya orbits, characterised by an inclination of +63.4 Degree s and a Orbital period of around 12 hours....
communications satellites
Mir
Mir

Mir was a Soviet Union orbital station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a Space station#Modular....
space station
Proton satellite
Proton satellite

The Proton was a model of Soviet Union scientific artificial satellites. The maximum mass was about 17 metric tonne. Four "Protons" were launched between 1965 and 1968....
satellites
Phobos
Phobos

Phobos, Greek language for "fear", is the root word of phobia. It may refer to:*Phobos , one of the sons of Ares and Aphrodite in Greek mythology...
Mars probes program
Salyut
Salyut

The Salyut program was the first space station program undertaken by the Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of nine single-module space stations launched over a period of eleven years from 1971 to 1982....
space stations
Soyuz programme
Soyuz programme

The Soyuz programme ; ) is a human spaceflight programme that was initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. It was originally part of a Moon landing programme intended to put a Soviet astronaut on the Moon....
Sputnik program
Sputnik program

The Sputnik program was a series of robotic spacecraft missions launched by the Soviet Union. The first of these, Sputnik 1, launched the first human-made object to orbit the Earth....
satellites
TKS spacecraft
TKS spacecraft

TKS spacecraft was designed by Vladimir Chelomei as a manned spacecraft launched with Proton rocket alternative to the Soyuz spacecraft to supply the military Almaz space station....
spacecraft
Venera
Venera

The Venera series of probes was developed by the USSR between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus. As with some of the USSR's other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle being launched soon after the first of the pair....
Venus probes program
Vega program
Vega program

The Vega program were a series of Venus missions which also took advantage of the appearance of Comet Halley in 1986. Vega 1 and Vega 2 were unmanned spacecraft launched in a cooperative effort among the Soviet Union and Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and the Federal Republic of Ge...
Venus and comet Halley probes program
Vostok programme
Vostok programme

The Vostok programme was a Soviet Union human spaceflight project that succeeded in putting a person into Earth orbit for the first time. The programme developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design....
spacecraft
Voskhod programme
Voskhod programme

The Voskhod programme was a Soviet Union human spaceflight project. Voskhod development was both a follow-on to the Vostok programme, recycling components left over from that programme's cancellation following its first six flights....
spacecraft
Zond program
Zond program

Zond was the name given to two series of Soviet Union unmanned space missions undertaken from 1964 to 1970 to gather information about nearby planets and to test spacecraft....

Other planned projects were not developed due to the fall of the Soviet Union. These included, amongst others, the Vesta mission.

Vesta mission

The Vesta mission

Vesta mission

The Soviet Union was planning a multiple asteroid flyby mission in the 80's.The Vesta mission would have consisted of two identical probes , to be launched in 1991....
would have consisted of two identical probes to be launched in 1991. It was intended to fly-by Mars and then study four small bodies, including asteroids belonging to different classes. At 4 Vesta

4 Vesta

4 Vesta is the second most massive object in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of about 530 km and an estimated mass of 9% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt....
a penetrator would be released.

Soviet space program

Origins

Firsts

Internal competition

After Korolyov

Failures

Projects

Completed

Vesta mission

See also

Chronologies

External links