Soviet Manned Lunar Programs - Early Concepts

Early Concepts

Although the Soviet leadership had made public pronouncements about landing a man on the Moon 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. 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 A-B-C circumlunar complex 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 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 proposed a competing cislunar orbiting mission using a heavy UR-500K rocket (later renamed the Proton rocket) 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 to Leonid Brezhnev 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.