The Space Race, part 4
See previous articles The Space Race, part 1, The Space Race, part 2, The space race, part 3: Outer Space Treaty
Let's get directed to the Moon, Disaster meets both sides :-(
Soviet crewed program to the Moon was early design of Korolev's Soyuz. The circumlunar space flight was planned to occur in 1967 and landing was supposed to occur in 1968 onward. The circumlunar flight (Zond) was supposed to fly 2 cosmonauts. They were supposed to use N1/L3, where N1 was super heavy lift launch vehicle intended to deliver payloads beyond the low Earth orbit. The work started in 1959. N1/L3 was designed to compete with US Apollo/Saturn V to land on the Moon. The N1 had three stages which was to carry the L3 lunar payload into low Earth orbit with two cosmonauts, compare that to Apollo program carrying 3 astronauts.
However N1/L3 was underfunded and rushed program, which started in October 1965, almost 4 years after the Saturn V. The program was delayed due to the death of the chief designed Sergei Korolev in 1966. All 4 attempts to launch N1 failed. During the second launch, the N1 rocket crashed back causing one of the worse non-nuclear explosions in the history (July 3, 1969). The N1 program was suspended in 1974 and two years later the program was canceled.
The Soviet manned lunar program, including N1 rocket (first published in 1989), was kept secret until the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991.
As the Outer Space Treaty (The Space Race, part-3: Outer Space Treaty) was signed by US and Soviet Union in January 27, 1967, the crew of Apollo 1, Virgil Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during the ground test one month before the planned launch on February 21, 1967.
On April 24, 1967 Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz 1 became the first in-flight spaceflight fatality. It was planned to make docking with unpiloted Soyuz 2, but the mission had experienced huge problems. One of the solar panels didn't deployed, so the spacecraft didn't have enough electrical power. Later attitude control system began to fail, resulting in spinning. Komarov tried to stop it, which was partly successful. The mission was needed to be aborted and during the emergency re-entry, the landing parachute system failed. Komarov was killed by the impact. It caused delay in the next launch to fix the problems. The next piloted mission Soyuz 3 was launched on October 26, 1968.
The first crewed spacecraft docking and crew transfer was realized in January 1969 by Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. Zond 4 was launched on March 2, 1968 and made successful circumlunar flight, but experienced problems with Earth reentry.
The mission Apollo 8 was motivated by the rumors that Soviets could be ready with piloted Zond flight during late 1968. Automatic flight Zond 5 made a circumlunar flight and returned safely to Earth. That scarred NASA planners. Zond 6 repeated similar mission however experience again troubles with reentry, exhibiting that Zonds were too unreliable.
On December 21, 1968, crew of Apollo 8, became the first to ride Saturn V and to leave the low Earth orbit and they reached the lunar orbit on December 24, 1968. The US lunar module was ready for a test flight in low Earth orbit on Apollo 9 in March 1969. Apollo 10 made a test flight for a lunar landing into 14.4 km above the lunar surface including lunar module descent, see also article Apollo program amazing years of space.
Almost there ...
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| Saturn V vs. N1 rocket |
However N1/L3 was underfunded and rushed program, which started in October 1965, almost 4 years after the Saturn V. The program was delayed due to the death of the chief designed Sergei Korolev in 1966. All 4 attempts to launch N1 failed. During the second launch, the N1 rocket crashed back causing one of the worse non-nuclear explosions in the history (July 3, 1969). The N1 program was suspended in 1974 and two years later the program was canceled.
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| Sputnik, Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz |
The Soviet manned lunar program, including N1 rocket (first published in 1989), was kept secret until the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991.
As the Outer Space Treaty (The Space Race, part-3: Outer Space Treaty) was signed by US and Soviet Union in January 27, 1967, the crew of Apollo 1, Virgil Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during the ground test one month before the planned launch on February 21, 1967.
On April 24, 1967 Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz 1 became the first in-flight spaceflight fatality. It was planned to make docking with unpiloted Soyuz 2, but the mission had experienced huge problems. One of the solar panels didn't deployed, so the spacecraft didn't have enough electrical power. Later attitude control system began to fail, resulting in spinning. Komarov tried to stop it, which was partly successful. The mission was needed to be aborted and during the emergency re-entry, the landing parachute system failed. Komarov was killed by the impact. It caused delay in the next launch to fix the problems. The next piloted mission Soyuz 3 was launched on October 26, 1968.
The first crewed spacecraft docking and crew transfer was realized in January 1969 by Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. Zond 4 was launched on March 2, 1968 and made successful circumlunar flight, but experienced problems with Earth reentry.
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| Zond 5 |
The mission Apollo 8 was motivated by the rumors that Soviets could be ready with piloted Zond flight during late 1968. Automatic flight Zond 5 made a circumlunar flight and returned safely to Earth. That scarred NASA planners. Zond 6 repeated similar mission however experience again troubles with reentry, exhibiting that Zonds were too unreliable.
On December 21, 1968, crew of Apollo 8, became the first to ride Saturn V and to leave the low Earth orbit and they reached the lunar orbit on December 24, 1968. The US lunar module was ready for a test flight in low Earth orbit on Apollo 9 in March 1969. Apollo 10 made a test flight for a lunar landing into 14.4 km above the lunar surface including lunar module descent, see also article Apollo program amazing years of space.
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| The lunar module in lunar orbit, Apollo 10, May 22-23, 1969 ' |
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