In November-December 1961, Korolev and others tried to further argue that a super heavy lift rocket could deliver ultra heavy nuclear weapons, such as the just tested Tsar Bomba, or many warheads (up to 17) as further justification for the N1 design. 10 11 Korolev was not inclined to use the rocket for military uses, but wanted to fulfill his space ambitions and saw military support as vital.The N1 was the Soviet counterpart to the US Saturn V and was intended to enable crewed travel to Earths Moon and beyond, 5 with studies beginning as early as 1959.
Its first stage remains the most powerful rocket stage ever built, 7 but all of the four flown N1 Block A first stages failed because a lack of static test firings meant that plumbing issues and other adverse characteristics with the large cluster of thirty engines and its complex fuel and oxidizer feeder system were not revealed earlier. The basic N1 launch vehicle had three stages, which were to carry the L3 lunar payload into low Earth orbit with two cosmonauts. The L3 contained one stage for trans-lunar injection; another stage used for mid-course corrections, lunar orbit insertion, and the first part of the descent to the lunar surface; a single-pilot LK Lander spacecraft; and a two-pilot Soyuz 7K-LOK lunar orbital spacecraft for return to Earth. The project was badly derailed by the death of its chief designer Sergei Korolev in 1966. Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed, with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff and causing one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions in human history. The N1 program was suspended in 1974, and officially canceled in 1976. All details of the Soviet crewed lunar programs were kept secret until the Soviet Union was nearing collapse in 1989. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. July 2018 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message ). The Soviet human lunar program received formal government approval in 1964, and one of the key components of that program was the rocket called the N1, comparable in size to the American Saturn 5 Moon rocket. These tests had significant impacts on key Apollo Program decisions. This particular rocket, designated 1M1 and also called the Facilities Systems Logistic Test and Training Vehicle, was actually a mockup and designed to give engineers valuable experience in the rollout, launch pad integration and rollback activities, reminiscent of similar tests conducted with a mockup Saturn 5 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in mid-1966. While the crawler transported the Saturn 5 to the pad vertically, the N1 made the trip horizontally and was then raised to the vertical at the pad a standard practice in the Soviet space program. ![]() The 1M1 mockup would be used repeatedly in the coming years for additional launch pad integration tests. NASA Administrator James Webb had access to this and other similar intelligence that showed that the Russians were seriously planning manned lunar missions. That knowledge influenced several key U.S. ![]() Moon. ![]() During the same month, the On Reconsideration of the Plans for Space Vehicles in the Direction of Defense Purposes report set the first test launch of the N1 rocket for 1965. In June, Korolev was given a small amount of funding to start N1 development between 1961 and 1963. At the same time, Korolev proposed a lunar mission based on the new Soyuz spacecraft using an Earth orbit rendezvous profile. Several Soyuz rocket launches would be used to build up a complete Moon mission package, including one for the Soyuz spacecraft, another for the lunar lander, and a few with cislunar engines and fuel. This approach, driven by the limited capacity of the Soyuz rocket, meant that a rapid launch rate would be required to assemble the complex before any of the components ran out of consumables on-orbit. Korolev subsequently proposed that the N1 be enlarged to allow a single launch lunar landing. In November-December 1961, Korolev and others tried to further argue that a super heavy lift rocket could deliver ultra heavy nuclear weapons, such as the just tested Tsar Bomba, or many warheads (up to 17) as further justification for the N1 design. Korolev was not inclined to use the rocket for military uses, but wanted to fulfill his space ambitions and saw military support as vital.
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