LK (spacecraft) - Cancellation

Cancellation

The success of Project Apollo in putting American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 meant that the United States won the Moon race, although plans were being drawn right up until the early 1970s. Four N1 launches were attempted including two later with dummy LK but all were failures, despite engineering improvements after each failure. The second launch attempt on July 3, 1969, just 13 days prior to the launch of Apollo 11, was a catastrophic failure which destroyed both the rocket and the launch complex. Subsequently, the complete L3 lunar expedition complex with regular LK and Soyuz 7K-LOK module-spacecrafts for Moon flyby and landing by full unmanned mission of future manned scenario was prepared for fifth launch of modified N1 rocket on August, 1974. But N1-L3 program was cancelled on May, 1974 and the Soviets decided to concentrate on the development of space stations, achieving several firsts in the process, which continues to the present day.