Zond Lunar Program...                     See the Buran program >>>

Since the first successful Vostok manned flights, the russians started to prepare a manned lunar landing. The success of the first crew of 3 (Voskhod 1 mission, in 1965) opened the skies for an actual lunar program and possible lunar landing around 1967 (to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution). However, like the 1967 Apollo fire, the russians also had some setbacks, namely the Soyuz 1 mission that killed Komarov in 1967 and also the failures of the N1 rocket launches (the equivalent to the Apollo Saturn V rocket).

From the hundreds of unmanned russian flights in the 1960's and 1970's, it was recently possible to link some of those flights to a lunar Zond program:

Besides these Zond missions, in the early 1970's, the russians also tested the actual lunar module and lunar lander on "unidentified unmanned missions". The Cosmos flights linked to these tests are Cosmos 379, 382, 398 and 434.

Crew assignment

Although a few of the early russian manned missions had objectives linked to a future lunar program, the first (and only) group of cosmonauts assigned to the Zond lunar program was only officially created in January 1968. It is said that moon preparations were made as early as Valery Bikosvky's Vostok 5 flight, when the mission break a record of 5 days in space. The "Lunar Group" of 18 cosmonauts had the following names (three cosmonauts are yet to be identified):

With the failure of the large N1 rocket, it is speculative to determine the actual mission assignments of each cosmonaut, however, from the information revealed by missions directors and the cosmonauts, the first early group, prepared for a circum-lunar mission in 1967/68 consisted of:

On a later stage, after the success of the Apollo 8 mission, the russian prepared for the actual moon landing, adjusting the crews for the following missions:

This photo shows the transport of a 7K-L1 circumlunar spacecraft on its Proton booster on the way from the assembly building to the launch pad at Tyura-Tam. Note the cluster of solid-propellant rocket engines at the top of the launch escape tower. The hatch on the external fairing for cosmonaut entry into the actual spacecraft can be seen in the foreground as a dark oblong shape

N1 rocket

In 1960, Sergei Korolev proposed a giant booster capable of launching 40 to 50 metric tons (88,000 to 110,000 lb) into low Earth orbit. This projected rocket, with ten times the payload capacity of the existing Vostok booster, was called the N1. V. P. Glushko, the Soviet Union's premier rocket propulsion expert, felt that it would be prohibitively expensive to build immense oxygen-hydrogen engines like the F-1's that would power the American Saturn V. Instead, he proposed large engines burning unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine (UMDH) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). These propellants, used in the American Titan, are storable and ignite on contact. But they are less efficient than Liquid oxygen and kerosene, and are highly toxic. Korolev instead chose to power the lower stages of his super booster with liquid oxygen and kerosene. Glushko took his technology to the Chelomei design bureau, which selected his engines to power the UR500 Proton booster. Korolev turned to the design bureau of Nikolai Kuznetsov (NK) for the N1's engines. In its original form, the first stage of the N1 was to be propelled by a ring of 24 engines. Air would be vented into the space inside the ring, where external combustion of exhaust gasses was supposed to augment the rocket thrust.

The N1 stood 105 meters (344 ft) tall and weighed 2788 metric tons (6.1 million lb) fully fueled. This compares with 110.7 meters (363 ft) and 2913 metric tons (6.4 million lb) for the American Saturn V. The first three stages of the N1, blocks A, B, and V, each took the form of a truncated cone containing a spherical kerosene tank above a larger liquid oxygen (LOX) tank. The first stage, Block A, was powered by 30 NK-33 engines, together producing 4620 metric tons (10 million lb) of thrust. This far exceeded the 3469 metric ton (7.65 million lb) thrust of the American Saturn V Moon rocket. The N1's "KORD" (Russian acronym for control of the work of the engines) system steered the rocket in pitch and yaw by throttling the 24 fixed outer engines. Roll control was maintained by routing engine turbine exhaust through six swivelled nozzles. Arrayed around the base of the N1's first stage were four grating stabilizers, each consisting of a cross hatched array of metal strips (acting as fins) held in a horizontal frame. After a first stage burn of 110 seconds, the second stage was to ignite its eight NK-43 engines for a 130-second burn. Finally, the third stage would insert the L-3 complex into orbit with a 400-second burn of its four NK-31 engines.

A rare photo of two N1 rockets ready for lift-off

N1 launch failures

On February 21, 1969 the first test of the N-1/L-3 vehicle took place at Tyuratam. At 12:18 P.M. Moscow time, the spacecraft launched; within seconds the KORD system shut down engines 12 and 24. At 66 seconds an oxidizer line leading into one of the engines erupted due to acoustic vibrations and a fire developed. At 70 seconds into flight the KORD system shut everything down and the escape tower jettisoned its precious payload. Why did this happen? In a great rush to get the program underway, Korolev and his successor Mishin decided not to test the 30 engines in a test stand due to expense and program delays. Only single engine tests were performed and the KORD system never went through any test at all..

On July 3, 1969 the second attempt was made to launch the N-1/L-3 mission. A metal object fell into the number 8 oxidizer pump which caused its engine to explode. The rest of the engines in the first stage, already on fire, were shut down. The rocket, very briefly airborne, fell back onto the launching pad and exploded; the emergency escape system functioned perfectly as the L-1 vehicle once again escaped a conflagration.

While the Soviets continued to test successfully their lunar landers and orbiters through November of 1972 the massive N-1 seemed never able to fly. On June 27, 1971 immediately after launch the N-1 began to experience severe roll control problems and by 51 seconds the vehicle was totally out of control. The KORD system shut down the engines which had been functioning beautifully and the vehicle was destroyed.

In 1972 when the Americans announced the termination of Apollo the Soviets planned to set up a modest base on the Moon and carry out much more extensive explorations. All of these plans depended on the operation of the N-1 with its next flight occurring on November 23, 1972. The liftoff was without incident and all systems worked until 90 seconds after launch when the six central core engines shut down as planned. The abrupt shut down of fuel flow caused pressure which ruptured the fuel lines and caused a fire which exploded the first stage 107 seconds into the launch. Since the N-1 was within 3 seconds of stage separation when it was destroyed, engineers developed a plan to continue the separation and continuation of the rocket launch even with such a malfunction, but the government would not let these hard workers continue with their program.

The lunar program is revealed

After the successful moon landings of the Apollo program, and following the various N1 launch failures, the russian lunar program was put on hold in 1972 and eventually canceled in 1974.

After years of denial by the russian authorities, only in the 1980's the first rumors of the existence of a russian manned lunar program were confirmed by some of the early cosmonauts. Bykovsky and Sevastyanov were among the first to reveal the identities of the first russians trained for a lunar mission, and were later followed by Makarov and Leonov, that in the 1990's showed to the western sources the actual moon landing modules still present in Russia.

There are many reasons mentioned for the failure of the program, the constant pressure from Khruschev and the following political leaders didn't lead to a "risk free" program. It is said tha more then 500 different organizations and 26 ministries and government departments were involved in the program, and after Korolyov's death, with was virtually impossible to find a team leader that could make the N1 rocket reach a safe launch status.

Bikovsky, Leonov, Sevastyanov and Makarov were among the first to reveal the secrets of the russian manned moon program

Soviet launches related to manned lunar programs

N1 rocket on launch pad, rare signed photo by Alexei Leonov, member of the prime crew of the canceled first russian circum-lunar mission