The author would like to thank Dmitry Vorontsov for additions.
The N1 Moon rocket
At the end of the 1950s, the OKB-1 design bureau led by Sergei Korolev began
development of a super-heavy rocket booster, later designated N1. Originally, it was proposed
as a multipurpose vehicle for a variety of military and scientific tasks,
including launches of space stations, expeditions to the Moon and even a potential human missions to Mars. In its early incarnation, the giant rocket was expected to deliver 75 tons of payload to the low Earth orbit.
The N1 project was ultimately approved by the Kremlin for a single mission -- to beat America
to the Moon. However, the N1's catastrophic failures during four test
launches on Feb. 21 and July 3, 1969, June 27, 1971, and Nov. 23, 1972, doomed the Soviet
effort to land a man on the Moon and left the ill-fated rocket under
a veil of secrecy for almost two decades.
June
27, 1971: The third launch of the N1 rocket (Vehicle No. 6L) carrying dummy LOK and LK spacecraft failed
at 50.1 seconds after liftoff from the left pad at Site 110 in Tyuratam.
Nov. 23,
1972: The fourth launch of the N1 rocket (Vehicle No. 7L) carrying an operational LOK spacecraft and a mockup of the LK lunar module failed about
107 seconds after liftoff from Site 110 in Tyuratam.
N1-L3
system overview:
Total
length
105
meters
Maximum
diameter
17 meters
Liftoff
mass
2,783-2,825
tons
Dry
mass
277-281
tons
Total
mass of liquid oxygen oxidizer (three stages - Block A, B and V combined)
1,780
tons
Total
mass of kerosene fuel (three stages - Block A, B and V combined)
Test
station No. 2 (IS-2) at NIIKhimmash research facility near Sergiev Posad,
formerly Zagorsk, was used for test firings of the engines for the 2nd,
3rd and 4th stages of the N1-L3 complex. Credit: NIIKhimmash
