Soviet Moon Landing Project

[Dmitry_V_home]

The RV of the LEK ship was noticeably different from the Soyuz ship

[Dmitry_V_home]

Lunar cargo ship and schemes of Soviet lunar bases

[saturnsky]

Thanks for the specs and diagrams...

[TheKutKu]

The family of RLA launch vehicles developed intensively in the period 1974-76, and even further.
"Energy" evolved from RLA-130, whereas "Vulcan" evolved from RLA-150.
Part of the history of RLA development is set out here: https://forum.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/index.php?topic=3349.msg127542#msg127542
A general view of the last variant of "Vulcan" can be seen in the attached picture.
The evolution of the "Energy" configuration can be seen in another picture.
Also: http://www.buran.ru/htm/os-120.htm and http://www.buran.ru/htm/ok-92.htm

Thank you for sharing this.
I notice that the 1977 version with 4 tanks in the core stage - with the upper two LO2/LH2 tanks being jettisoned with a solid propellant system as described in B. Hendrickx's works and Gubanov's memoirs -  has only two interstages, whereas one would expect a set of 4 tanks to have 3, is it artistic license or were the upper two tanks supposed to have a common bulkhead?

[Oso Perez]

The expedition scheme with one LEK ship provided for one launch of a super-heavy RLA-150 launch vehicle. But a less preferred two-ship scheme (Landing Expeditionary and Orbiting Expeditionary) was also considered. They were supposed to be launched by two missiles of the RLA-130 type.

Based on the diagram of the LKE spacecraft you published earlier and the current diagram "Lunniy Korabl Ekspeditsionny po etapam..." the outer diameter of the RLA-150 appears to be about 9.2 meters, while some diagrams of the Vulkan rocket show its center core stage being about 9.4 meters in diameter, with the upper stage Vesubius only 7.75 meters in diam., the same as the Energia rocket core.

That seems too small for the size of the LKE/LEK ship, does this show that the single launch, single ship scenario was no longer being studied in the later phases of the Vulkan/LEK design and development process?

Thanks

[Blackstar]

Anatoly Zak has something about one of the advanced lunar projects on his subscription-only website. He just announced it the other day. I'll try to provide a link.

"First detailed look at the D2 space tug from the Soviet L3M lunar expeditionary complex designed to "outshine" the Apollo program:"

https://www.russianspaceweb.com/insider-content.html

[Dmitry_V_home]

The outer diameter of the payload fairing of the RLA-150 rocket was 8370 mm. This was enough to accommodate a LEK ship with folded landing legs.
In its final form (1988), the Vulcan rocket had a fairing with a diameter of 9200 mm, while the diameter of the Block C was 7750 mm.

[Oso Perez]

Hi Dmitry, many thanks for the clarification.

_____________________________

Going back to the N1 L3S launches of 1969, it seems that both launches carried a version of the Zond spacecraft, L1S or L1A.

Is there a technical diagram (komponovochnaya skhema) of these payloads in the fairing of the N1 with the Blok D, Blok G, etcetera that indicates the masses of the components of the complex at Earth orbit insertion, after start to trans lunar trajectory, lunar orbit insertion, etc.?

Thank you and Greetings

[Dmitry_V_home]

I have not seen detailed official layouts. There is only a well-known photo of the L3S complex with the ship 11F92.
The mass of the complex in low Earth orbit in the launches of N1 No. 3L and 4L missiles was approximately 70.56 mt.
Mass of the fairing is 21.9 mt, including mass of LAS more than 7 mt.

[Oso Perez]

Hi!

It would be interesting to see what the internal arrangement of the N1 payload fairing was for the 3L and 5L flights.

I understand that the mission flight profile was for the L1A + LK adapter + Blok D to do an overflight around the Moon, and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit. Or was there the capability for the Blok D to fire to brake into lunar orbit?

The L1A spacecraft was supposed to photograph several sites on the lunar surface, but then how was it supposed to return to Earth? Was the Blok D stage still attached to the L1A through the LK adapter?

If not, I suspect the L1A might have been fitted with an auxiliary small rocket stage (razgonniy blok), to fire and accelerate into an Earth return trajectory.

I read somewhere that after the cancellation of the Soyuz 7K-9K-11K in tne mid 1960s a complex of auxilliary rocket stages Blok M and Blok N was studied to accomplish the same goal, overflight of the Moon after assembly of a spacecraft complex in low Earth orbit.

In particular the Blok N was a small hypergolic-fuelled rocket stage (?). Could that have been used in this instance (N1 3L and 5L)?

Thanks

[Nighthawk117]

Landers in CGI.

[Dmitry_V_home]

LOK and LEK for a two-ship expedition using a RLA-130A launch vehicle (1975)

[Dmitry_V_home]

Hi!

It would be interesting to see what the internal arrangement of the N1 payload fairing was for the 3L and 5L flights.

I understand that the mission flight profile was for the L1A + LK adapter + Blok D to do an overflight around the Moon, and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit. Or was there the capability for the Blok D to fire to brake into lunar orbit?

The L1A spacecraft was supposed to photograph several sites on the lunar surface, but then how was it supposed to return to Earth? Was the Blok D stage still attached to the L1A through the LK adapter?

If not, I suspect the L1A might have been fitted with an auxiliary small rocket stage (razgonniy blok), to fire and accelerate into an Earth return trajectory.

I read somewhere that after the cancellation of the Soyuz 7K-9K-11K in tne mid 1960s a complex of auxilliary rocket stages Blok M and Blok N was studied to accomplish the same goal, overflight of the Moon after assembly of a spacecraft complex in low Earth orbit.

In particular the Blok N was a small hypergolic-fuelled rocket stage (?). Could that have been used in this instance (N1 3L and 5L)?

Thanks

In flight, it was 3L planned for the 7K-L1A ship to enter lunar orbit using Block D. The expedition scheme in flight was 5L the same. In flight, 7L was supposed to enter the lunar orbit of the entire L3 complex.

To be honest, I've never heard of it. I know that there was a project of Blok M. This is a large cryogenic third stage in the rocket project N-1M

[sdsds]

Unsure how much of this is already covered in this thread; it looks like Nick Stevens presents a nice summary here:
https://graphicsnickstevens.substack.com/p/1973-n1-l3m-project-details

[DoubleDuck]

Hello,
I can see you are using RGANTD as reference, with some very technical and interesting documents. I however never understood nor found out how to use it. Could you please explain how to reverse engineer these links or find similar ones?

Many thanks, DD

[sdsds]

Hello,
I can see you are using RGANTD as reference, with some very technical and interesting documents. I however never understood nor found out how to use it. Could you please explain how to reverse engineer these links or find similar ones?

Many thanks, DD

Hello DoubleDuck, and welcome to the forum!

I am not the author of the page I linked. In addition to asking your question here, you might want to ask directly at https://nick-stevens.com/contact/ .

I too am curious about the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD)
I think their website is at https://www.rgantd.ru/en/
 
Please do report back here anything of interest you discover!

[Dmitry_V_home]

Hello,
I can see you are using RGANTD as reference, with some very technical and interesting documents. I however never understood nor found out how to use it. Could you please explain how to reverse engineer these links or find similar ones?

Many thanks, DD

Hi!
The main source of information on the program N-1 L-3 and its derivatives is Sergey Shamsutdinov, an employee of the RGANTD (one of the former editors of the Cosmonautics News magazine).
He shares information on the Cosmonautics News Forum in several topics:
https://forum.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/index.php?topic=20505.0
https://forum.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/index.php?topic=11262.20
https://forum.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/index.php?topic=22751.0
https://forum.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/index.php?topic=19413.0

[catdlr]

Anatoly Zak@RussianSpaceWeb
Explainer for the L3M two-launch/two-spacecraft scenario developed at TsKBEM (Korolev's) design bureau in 1971, as a response to the Apollo program

https://russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_manned_lunar.html