The super-heavy launch vehicle N-1 was nicknamed the "Tsar Rocket" for its large size (launch weight of almost 2500 tons, height - 110 meters), as well as the goals set during the work on it.
The rocket was supposed to help strengthen the state's defense capability, promote scientific and national economic programs, as well as manned interplanetary flights.

However, like their namesakes known - the Tsar Bell and the Tsar Cannon - this design product was never used for its intended purpose.


The creation of a heavy super-rocket in the USSR began to be thought about as early as the late 1950s. Ideas and assumptions for its development were accumulated in the royal OKB-1. Among the options - it was supposed to use the design reserve from the R-7 rocket that launched the first Soviet satellites and even the development of a nuclear propulsion system. Finally, by 1962, the expert commission, and later the country's leadership, chose a layout with a vertical rocket design that could put into orbit a load weighing up to 75 tons (the mass of the load thrown to the Moon is 23 tons, to Mars - 15 tons). At the same time, it was possible to introduce and develop a large number of unique technologies - an on-board computer, new welding methods, lattice wings, an emergency rescue system for astronauts, and much more.

Initially, the rocket was intended to launch a heavy orbital station into near-Earth orbit, with the subsequent prospect of assembling TMK, a heavy interplanetary spacecraft for flights to Mars and Venus. However, a belated decision was later made to include the USSR in the "moon race" with the delivery of a man to the surface of the moon. Thus, the program for the creation of the N-1 rocket was accelerated and it actually turned into a carrier for the LZ expeditionary spacecraft in the N-1-LZ complex.

Before deciding on the final scheme of the launch vehicle, the creators had to evaluate at least 60 different options, from polyblock to monoblock, both parallel and sequential division of the rocket into stages. For each of these options, appropriate comprehensive analyzes of both advantages and disadvantages were carried out, including a feasibility study for the project.

In the course of preliminary studies, the creators were forced to abandon the multi-block scheme with parallel division into steps, although this scheme had already been tested on the R-7 and made it possible to transport finished elements of the launch vehicle (propulsion systems, tanks) from the factory to the cosmodrome by rail . The rocket was assembled and tested on site. This scheme was rejected due to a non-optimal combination of mass costs and additional hydro-, mechanical, pneumatic and electrical connections between rocket blocks. As a result, a monoblock scheme came to the fore, which involved the use of a liquid-propellant rocket engine with pre-pumps, which made it possible to reduce the wall thickness (and hence the mass) of the tanks, as well as reduce the boost gas pressure.

The project of the N-1 rocket was unusual in many respects, but its main distinguishing features were the original scheme with spherical outboard tanks, as well as a load-bearing outer skin, which was reinforced by a power set (a semi-monocoque aircraft scheme was used) and an annular placement of a liquid-propellant rocket engine on each of the steps. Thanks to this technical solution, in relation to the first stage of the rocket during the launch and its ascent, the air from the surrounding atmosphere was ejected by the exhaust jets of the rocket engine into the internal space under the tank. This resulted in what appeared to be a very large jet engine that included the entire underside of the 1st stage structure. Even without air afterburning of the rocket engine exhaust, this scheme provided the rocket with a significant increase in thrust, increasing its overall efficiency.


The stages of the N-1 rocket were interconnected by special transitional trusses, through which gases could flow absolutely freely in the event of a hot start of the engines of the next stages. The missile was controlled through the roll channel using control nozzles, into which gas was supplied, discharged there after the turbopump units (TNA), along the pitch and course channels, control was carried out using the thrust mismatch of the opposite rocket engines.

Due to the impossibility of transporting the stages of a super-heavy rocket by rail, the creators proposed that the outer shell of the N-1 be made detachable, and its fuel tanks should be made from sheet blanks (“petals”) directly at the cosmodrome itself. This idea initially did not fit in the head of the members of the expert commission. Therefore, having adopted the preliminary design of the N-1 rocket in July 1962, the members of the commission recommended further work on the delivery of the rocket stages in assembled form, for example, using an airship.

During the defense of the conceptual design of the rocket, the commission presented 2 versions of the rocket: using AT or liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. In this case, the option with liquid oxygen was considered as the main one, since the rocket, using AT-UDMH fuel, would have lower characteristics. In cost terms, the creation of an engine on liquid oxygen seemed to be more economical. At the same time, according to the representatives of OKB-1, in the event of an emergency on board the rocket, the oxygen option seemed safer than the option using an AT-based oxidizer. The creators of the rocket remembered the R-16 disaster, which occurred in October 1960 and worked on self-igniting toxic components.

When creating a multi-engine version of the N-1 rocket, Sergei Korolev relied primarily on the concept of increasing the reliability of the entire propulsion system, by possibly shutting down defective rocket engines during flight. This principle has found its application in the engine control system - KORD, which was designed to detect and turn off faulty engines.

Korolev insisted on the installation of LRE engines. Lacking infrastructure and technological capabilities for the costly and risky creation of advanced high-energy oxygen-hydrogen engines and advocating the use of more toxic and powerful heptyl-amyl engines, the leading engine building design bureau Glushko did not deal with engines for H1, after which their development was entrusted to Kuznetsov Design Bureau. It should be noted that the specialists of this design bureau managed to achieve the highest resource and energy perfection for oxygen-kerosene type engines. At all stages of the launch vehicle, the fuel was located in the original ball tanks, which were suspended on the carrier shell. At the same time, the engines of the Kuznetsov design bureau were not powerful enough, which led to the fact that they had to be installed in large quantities, which ultimately led to a number of negative effects.

A set of design documentation for the N-1 was ready by March 1964, work on flight design tests (LKI) was planned to begin in 1965, but due to the lack of funding and resources for the project, this did not happen. There was a lack of interest in this project - the USSR Ministry of Defense, since the payload of the rocket and the range of tasks were not specifically designated. Then Sergei Korolev tried to interest the political leadership of the state in the rocket, offering to use the rocket in a lunar mission. This proposal was accepted. On August 3, 1964, a corresponding government decree was issued, the start date for LCI on the rocket was shifted to 1967-1968.

To carry out the mission of delivering 2 cosmonauts to the lunar orbit with the landing of one of them on the surface, it was necessary to increase the rocket's carrying capacity to 90-100 tons. This required solutions that would not lead to fundamental changes in the preliminary design. Such solutions were found - the installation of additional 6 LRE engines in the central part of the bottom of block "A", a change in the launch azimuth, a decrease in the height of the reference orbit, an increase in refueling of fuel tanks by supercooling the fuel and oxidizer. Thanks to this, the carrying capacity of the H-1 was increased to 95 tons, and the launch weight increased to 2800-2900 tons. The preliminary design of the N-1-LZ rocket for the lunar program was signed by Korolev on December 25, 1964.

The following year, the rocket scheme underwent changes, it was decided to abandon the ejection. The air flow was closed by the introduction of a special tail compartment. A distinctive feature of the rocket was its massive payload recoil, which was unique for Soviet rockets. The entire carrier scheme worked for this, in which the frame and tanks did not form a single whole. At the same time, a rather small layout area due to the use of large spherical tanks led to a decrease in payload, and on the other hand, extremely high engine performance, an exceptionally low specific gravity of the tanks and unique design solutions increased it.

All stages of the rocket were called blocks "A", "B", "C" (in the lunar version they were used to launch the ship into low Earth orbit), blocks "G" and "D" were intended to accelerate the ship from the Earth and decelerate at the Moon. The unique scheme of the N-1 rocket, all stages of which were structurally similar, made it possible to transfer the test results of the 2nd stage of the rocket to the 1st. Possible emergency situations that could not be "caught" on the ground were supposed to be checked in flight.

On February 21, 1969, the first rocket launch took place, followed by 3 more launches. All of them were unsuccessful. Although during some bench tests the NK-33 engines proved to be very reliable, most of the problems that arose were associated with them. The problems of the H-1 were associated with the turning moment, strong vibration, hydrodynamic shock (during the start of the engines), electrical noise and other unaccounted for effects that were caused by the simultaneous operation of such a large number of engines (at the first stage - 30) and the large size of the carrier itself .

These difficulties could not be established before the start of flights, since, in order to save money, expensive ground stands were not produced to conduct fire and dynamic tests of the entire carrier, or at least its 1st stage assembly. The result of this was the testing of a complex product directly in flight. This rather controversial approach eventually led to a series of launch vehicle accidents.

Some attribute the failure of the project to the fact that from the very beginning the state did not have a definite clear position, like Kennedy's strategic bet on the lunar mission. The shyness of the Khrushchev and then Brezhnev leadership regarding effective strategies and tasks of astronautics is documented. So one of the developers of the Tsar Rocket, Sergei Kryukov, noted that the N-1 complex died not so much due to technical difficulties, but because it had become a bargaining chip in the game of personal and political ambitions.

Another industry veteran, Vyacheslav Galyaev, believes that the determining factor for failures, in addition to the lack of proper attention from the state, was the banal inability to work with such complex objects, while achieving the approval of quality and reliability criteria, as well as the unpreparedness of Soviet science at that time to such an ambitious program. One way or another, in June 1974, work on the N1-LZ complex was stopped. The backlog available under this program was destroyed, and the costs (in the amount of 4-6 billion rubles in 1970 prices) were simply written off.

Launch vehicle "N-1": the history of disasters

Korolev's place as the head of OKB-1 (since 1966 - the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Engineering, TsKBEM) was taken by Vasily Mishin. Unfortunately, this remarkable designer did not have the perseverance that allowed the Queen to realize his aspirations. Many still believe that it was Korolev's premature death and Mishin's "softness" that became the main reason for the collapse of the N-1 rocket project and, as a result, the Soviet lunar program. This is a naive misconception.

Because miracles do not happen: even at the design stage, several erroneous decisions appeared in the design of the N-1 rocket, which led to disaster.

But first things first.

In February 1966, the construction of the launch complex (site No. 110) was completed at Baikonur, but he had to wait a long time for his rocket.

The first "N-1" appeared at the cosmodrome only on May 7, 1968. In the same place, at Baikonur, dynamic tests, technological developments of the assembly process, fitting of the carrier at the launch complex were carried out. For this, two copies of the N-1 rocket, known under the designations "1L" and "2L", served. They were not destined to take off, and they were not created for flying.

In the final version, the H-1 rocket (11A52) had the following characteristics. Dimensions: total length (with spacecraft) - 105.3 meters, maximum hull diameter - 17 meters, launch weight - 2750-2820 tons, launch thrust - 4590 tons.

"H-1" was made with a transverse division of steps. The 1st stage (block "A") had 30 single-chamber main LRE "NK-15", 6 of which were located in the center, 24 - on the periphery, and 6 steering nozzles for roll control. The launch vehicle could fly with two disconnected pairs of oppositely located peripheral rocket engines of block "A". The 2nd stage (block "B") had 8 single-chamber main rocket engines "NK-15V" with high-altitude nozzles and 4 steering control nozzles for roll. The launch vehicle could fly with one disconnected pair of rocket engines of block "B". The 3rd stage (block "B") had 4 single-chamber main NK-19 rocket engines and 4 roll control steering nozzles and could fly with one rocket engine turned off.

All engines were developed at the Kuibyshev Aviation Design Bureau (now the Samara NPO Trud) under the leadership of Chief Designer Nikolai Kuznetsov. Kerosene was used as a fuel, and liquid oxygen was used as an oxidizing agent.

The launch vehicle was equipped with a system for coordinating the simultaneous operation of engines "KORD", which, if necessary, turned off faulty engines.

The launch complex consisted of two launchers with 145-meter service towers, through which the launch vehicle was refueled, its temperature control and power supply were carried out.

Through these towers, the crew had to board the ship. After the completion of the refueling of the launch vehicle and the landing of the crew, the service tower was retracted to the side, and the rocket remained on the launch pad, held at the bottom by 48 pneumomechanical locks.

Around each launcher there were four lightning rods (divertors) 180 meters high. Three concrete channels were made to remove gases during the start of the first stage engines. In total, more than 90 structures were built at site No. 110.

In addition, at site No. 112, an assembly and test building of the launch vehicle was erected, where the launch vehicle arrived by rail in a disassembled state and was mounted in a horizontal position.

The spacecraft passed pre-flight checks and was mounted with other LRC units in the assembly and test building of space objects at site No. 2B. After that, it was closed with a fairing and sent by rail to the filling station at site No. 112A, where its engines were refueled. Then the refueled "LRK" was transported to the rocket and mounted on the third stage of the launch vehicle, after which the entire complex was taken to the starting position.

The first flight and design test of the N-1 rocket, which took place under the designation ZL, took place on February 21, 1969. As part of the lunar rocket complex during the first launch, instead of LOK and LK, the 7K-L1S (11F92) automatic spacecraft was installed, outwardly resembling the 7K-L1, but equipped with many systems of the L-3 spacecraft and powerful cameras. Vladimir Bugrov was the lead designer of the 11F92 product. In the event of a successful launch, the 7L-L1S spacecraft was supposed to enter the Moon's orbit, take high-quality photographs of it, and deliver the films to Earth.

Boris Chertok in his memoirs describes the moment of launch as follows:

“At 12 hours 18 minutes 07 seconds, the rocket shuddered and began to rise. The roar penetrated the dungeon through many meters of concrete. In the first seconds of the flight, a telemetry report followed about the shutdown of two engines out of thirty.

Observers who, despite the strict security regime, managed to follow the flight from the surface, said that the torch seemed unusually hard, "did not flutter", and was three to four times longer than the length of the rocket body.

Ten seconds later, the roar of the engines faded away. The hall became quite quiet. The second minute of the flight began And suddenly - the torch went out ...

It was the 69th second of the flight. The burning rocket was removed without an engine torch. At a slight angle to the horizon, it was still moving upwards, then leaned over and, leaving a smoky plume, began to fall without falling apart.

You experience not fear and not annoyance, but some complex mixture of severe inner pain and a feeling of absolute helplessness, watching an emergency rocket approaching the ground. Before your eyes, the creation is dying, which for several years you have united so much that sometimes it seemed that this inanimate “product” has a soul. Even now it seems to me that in every dead rocket there should have been a soul collected from the feelings and experiences of hundreds of creators of this “product”.

The first flight fell along the flight path 52 kilometers from the starting position.

A distant flash confirmed: it's all over! .. "

The subsequent investigation showed that from the 3rd to the 10th second of the flight, the KORD engine control system erroneously turned off the 12th and 24th engines of block A, but the launch vehicle continued flying with two engines turned off. At the 66th second, due to strong vibration, the oxidizer pipeline of one of the engines broke.

A fire started in an oxygen environment. The rocket could have continued its flight, but at the 70th second of the flight, when the rocket reached an altitude of 14 kilometers, the KORD system immediately turned off all the engines of block A, and N-1 fell into the steppe.

Based on the analysis of the causes of the accident, it was decided to introduce a freon fire extinguishing system with a spray nozzle above each engine.

The second test of the "N-1" ("5L") with the automatic ship "11F92" and the model "LK" ("11F94") took place on July 3, 1969. This was the first night launch of the H-1.

At 23.18, the rocket broke away from the launch pad, but when it rose slightly above the lightning rods (0.4 seconds after passing the “lift contact” command), the eighth engine of block “A” exploded. The explosion damaged the cable network and neighboring engines, a fire broke out.

The rise slowed sharply, the rocket began to tilt and fell on the launch pad at the 18th second of the flight. The explosion destroyed the launch complex and all six underground floors of the launch facility. One of the lightning rods fell, curled into a spiral. The 145-meter service tower has moved off the rails.

The emergency rescue system worked reliably, and the descent vehicle of the 11F92 automatic spacecraft landed two kilometers from the starting position.

Cosmonaut Anatoly Voronov recalls that cosmonauts were present at that time during preparations for the launch. They climbed to the very top of the 105-meter rocket, examined and studied the lunar rocket complex. Late in the evening they watched the launch from the cosmonauts' hotel: “Suddenly, it flared up, we managed to run down, and at that time all the windows were knocked out by a shock wave. After the fall, the rocket exploded right on the launch pad ... "

The cause of the explosion was the ingress of a foreign object into the oxygen pump of engine No. 8 0.25 seconds before the ascent. This led to the explosion of the pump, and then the engine itself. After installing the filters, this should not have happened again. It took almost two years to finalize and test the engines of the Kuznetsov design bureau. The TsKBEM designers had to admit that the reliability testing strategy was chosen incorrectly.

A large rocket-space system must fulfill its main task on the first try. To do this, everything that can be tested must be tested on Earth, before the first target flight. The system itself should be based on the reusability of action and large resource reserves.

However, it was too late to create a full-scale stand for testing the first stage. Therefore, we limited ourselves to the introduction of additional safety devices.

The third launch of "N-1" ("6L") was carried out from the surviving launch complex on June 27, 1971. A lunar rocket complex with LOK and LK layouts was installed as a payload. At 2.15 the launch vehicle broke away from the launch pad and began to rise. This time, the flight program included a maneuver to withdraw the launch vehicle from the launch complex.

After its execution, due to the occurrence of unaccounted for gas-dynamic moments in the bottom part, the rocket began to turn in a roll with a constant increase in torque. After 4.5 seconds, the angle of rotation was 14° after 48 seconds - about 200° and continued to increase.

Block “B” began to collapse from large overloads during rotation at the 49th second of the flight, and the head block, along with the third stage, broke away from the complex, which fell seven kilometers from the launch complex. The 1st and 2nd stages continued their flight. At the 51st second, "KORD" turned off all the engines of block "A", the rocket fell twenty kilometers away and exploded, forming a funnel 15 meters deep.

Boris Chertok described the situation with the 6L disaster as follows: “... The fire jets of 30 engines formed a common fire torch in such a way that a disturbing torque was created around the longitudinal axis of the rocket, unforeseen by theorists and no calculations. The controls were unable to cope with this disturbance, and rocket No. 6L lost stability. And further: “The true disturbing moment was determined by modeling using electronic machines. At the same time, not the calculations of gas dynamics were taken as initial data, but the data of telemetric measurements actually obtained in flight.

As a result, it was shown that "the actual disturbing moment is several times greater than the maximum possible control moment, which was developed by the control nozzles along the roll at their maximum deviation."

As a result of the work of the commission investigating the cause of the accident, it was decided to install four steering engines with a thrust of 6 tons each in the first and second stages instead of six steering nozzles.

The last test of the N-1 (7L) launch vehicle with a standard LOK and LK, made in an unmanned version, was carried out on November 23, 1972. The start took place at 9.11. At the 90th second of the flight, in accordance with the program, 3 seconds before the separation of the 1st stage, the engines began to switch to the final thrust mode. Six central rocket engines were turned off, having worked out the estimated time. The rate of ascent has been drastically reduced. This caused an unforeseen water hammer, as a result of which LRE No. 4 went into resonance, from which the fuel pipelines collapsed, and a fire started. The rocket exploded at the 107th second.

Despite the fact that not a single N-1 rocket was able to complete the launch program, the designers continued to work on it. The next, fifth, start was scheduled for August 1974, but did not take place. In May 1974, the Soviet lunar program was closed, and all work on the N-1 was stopped. Two ready-to-launch rockets "8L" and "9L" were destroyed.

Only 150 NK-type engines, made for various stages of the rocket, were saved from the N-1. Nikolai Kuznetsov, despite the government's order, mothballed them and kept them for many years. As time has shown, he did it not in vain. In the 90s, they were purchased by the Americans and used on Atlas-2AR missiles (Atlas-2AR) ...

Battle for the stars-2. Space Confrontation (Part I) Pervushin Anton Ivanovich

Launch vehicle "N-1": the history of disasters

Korolev's place as the head of OKB-1 (since 1966 - the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Engineering, TsKBEM) was taken by Vasily Mishin. Unfortunately, this remarkable designer did not have the perseverance that allowed the Queen to realize his aspirations. Many still believe that it was Korolev's premature death and Mishin's "softness" that became the main reason for the collapse of the N-1 rocket project and, as a result, the Soviet lunar program. This is a naive misconception.

Because miracles do not happen: even at the design stage, several erroneous decisions appeared in the design of the N-1 rocket, which led to disaster.

But first things first.

In February 1966, the construction of the launch complex (site No. 110) was completed at Baikonur, but he had to wait a long time for his rocket.

The first "N-1" appeared at the cosmodrome only on May 7, 1968. In the same place, at Baikonur, dynamic tests, technological developments of the assembly process, fitting of the carrier at the launch complex were carried out. For this, two copies of the N-1 rocket, known under the designations "1L" and "2L", served. They were not destined to take off, and they were not created for flying.

In the final version, the H-1 rocket (11A52) had the following characteristics. Dimensions: total length (with spacecraft) - 105.3 meters, maximum hull diameter - 17 meters, launch weight - 2750-2820 tons, launch thrust - 4590 tons.

"H-1" was made with a transverse division of steps. The 1st stage (block "A") had 30 single-chamber main LRE "NK-15", 6 of which were located in the center, 24 - on the periphery, and 6 steering nozzles for roll control. The launch vehicle could fly with two disconnected pairs of oppositely located peripheral rocket engines of block "A". The 2nd stage (block "B") had 8 single-chamber main rocket engines "NK-15V" with high-altitude nozzles and 4 steering control nozzles for roll. The launch vehicle could fly with one disconnected pair of rocket engines of block "B". The 3rd stage (block "B") had 4 single-chamber main NK-19 rocket engines and 4 roll control steering nozzles and could fly with one rocket engine turned off.

All engines were developed at the Kuibyshev Aviation Design Bureau (now the Samara NPO Trud) under the leadership of Chief Designer Nikolai Kuznetsov. Kerosene was used as a fuel, and liquid oxygen was used as an oxidizing agent.

The launch vehicle was equipped with a system for coordinating the simultaneous operation of engines "KORD", which, if necessary, turned off faulty engines.

The launch complex consisted of two launchers with 145-meter service towers, through which the launch vehicle was refueled, its temperature control and power supply were carried out.

Through these towers, the crew had to board the ship. After the completion of the refueling of the launch vehicle and the landing of the crew, the service tower was retracted to the side, and the rocket remained on the launch pad, held at the bottom by 48 pneumomechanical locks.

Around each launcher there were four lightning rods (divertors) 180 meters high. Three concrete channels were made to remove gases during the start of the first stage engines. In total, more than 90 structures were built at site No. 110.

In addition, at site No. 112, an assembly and test building of the launch vehicle was erected, where the launch vehicle arrived by rail in a disassembled state and was mounted in a horizontal position.

The spacecraft passed pre-flight checks and was mounted with other LRC units in the assembly and test building of space objects at site No. 2B. After that, it was closed with a fairing and sent by rail to the filling station at site No. 112A, where its engines were refueled. Then the refueled "LRK" was transported to the rocket and mounted on the third stage of the launch vehicle, after which the entire complex was taken to the starting position.

The first flight and design test of the N-1 rocket, which took place under the designation ZL, took place on February 21, 1969. As part of the lunar rocket complex during the first launch, instead of LOK and LK, the 7K-L1S (11F92) automatic spacecraft was installed, outwardly resembling the 7K-L1, but equipped with many systems of the L-3 spacecraft and powerful cameras. Vladimir Bugrov was the lead designer of the 11F92 product. In the event of a successful launch, the 7L-L1S spacecraft was supposed to enter the Moon's orbit, take high-quality photographs of it, and deliver the films to Earth.

Boris Chertok in his memoirs describes the moment of launch as follows:

“At 12 hours 18 minutes 07 seconds, the rocket shuddered and began to rise. The roar penetrated the dungeon through many meters of concrete. In the first seconds of the flight, a telemetry report followed about the shutdown of two engines out of thirty.

Observers who, despite the strict security regime, managed to follow the flight from the surface, said that the torch seemed unusually hard, "did not flutter", and was three to four times longer than the length of the rocket body.

Ten seconds later, the roar of the engines faded away. The hall became quite quiet. The second minute of the flight began And suddenly - the torch went out ...

It was the 69th second of the flight. The burning rocket was removed without an engine torch. At a slight angle to the horizon, it was still moving upwards, then leaned over and, leaving a smoky plume, began to fall without falling apart.

You experience not fear and not annoyance, but some complex mixture of severe inner pain and a feeling of absolute helplessness, watching an emergency rocket approaching the ground. Before your eyes, the creation is dying, which for several years you have united so much that sometimes it seemed that this inanimate “product” has a soul. Even now it seems to me that in every dead rocket there should have been a soul collected from the feelings and experiences of hundreds of creators of this “product”.

The first flight fell along the flight path 52 kilometers from the starting position.

A distant flash confirmed: it's all over! .. "

The subsequent investigation showed that from the 3rd to the 10th second of the flight, the KORD engine control system erroneously turned off the 12th and 24th engines of block A, but the launch vehicle continued flying with two engines turned off. At the 66th second, due to strong vibration, the oxidizer pipeline of one of the engines broke.

A fire started in an oxygen environment. The rocket could have continued its flight, but at the 70th second of the flight, when the rocket reached an altitude of 14 kilometers, the KORD system immediately turned off all the engines of block A, and N-1 fell into the steppe.

Based on the analysis of the causes of the accident, it was decided to introduce a freon fire extinguishing system with a spray nozzle above each engine.

The second test of the "N-1" ("5L") with the automatic ship "11F92" and the model "LK" ("11F94") took place on July 3, 1969. This was the first night launch of the H-1.

At 23.18, the rocket broke away from the launch pad, but when it rose slightly above the lightning rods (0.4 seconds after passing the “lift contact” command), the eighth engine of block “A” exploded. The explosion damaged the cable network and neighboring engines, a fire broke out.

The rise slowed sharply, the rocket began to tilt and fell on the launch pad at the 18th second of the flight. The explosion destroyed the launch complex and all six underground floors of the launch facility. One of the lightning rods fell, curled into a spiral. The 145-meter service tower has moved off the rails.

The emergency rescue system worked reliably, and the descent vehicle of the 11F92 automatic spacecraft landed two kilometers from the starting position.

Cosmonaut Anatoly Voronov recalls that cosmonauts were present at that time during preparations for the launch. They climbed to the very top of the 105-meter rocket, examined and studied the lunar rocket complex. Late in the evening they watched the launch from the cosmonauts' hotel: “Suddenly, it flared up, we managed to run down, and at that time all the windows were knocked out by a shock wave. After the fall, the rocket exploded right on the launch pad ... "

The cause of the explosion was the ingress of a foreign object into the oxygen pump of engine No. 8 0.25 seconds before the ascent. This led to the explosion of the pump, and then the engine itself. After installing the filters, this should not have happened again. It took almost two years to finalize and test the engines of the Kuznetsov design bureau. The TsKBEM designers had to admit that the reliability testing strategy was chosen incorrectly.

A large rocket-space system must fulfill its main task on the first try. To do this, everything that can be tested must be tested on Earth, before the first target flight. The system itself should be based on the reusability of action and large resource reserves.

However, it was too late to create a full-scale stand for testing the first stage. Therefore, we limited ourselves to the introduction of additional safety devices.

The third launch of "N-1" ("6L") was carried out from the surviving launch complex on June 27, 1971. A lunar rocket complex with LOK and LK layouts was installed as a payload. At 2.15 the launch vehicle broke away from the launch pad and began to rise. This time, the flight program included a maneuver to withdraw the launch vehicle from the launch complex.

After its execution, due to the occurrence of unaccounted for gas-dynamic moments in the bottom part, the rocket began to turn in a roll with a constant increase in torque. After 4.5 seconds, the angle of rotation was 14° after 48 seconds - about 200° and continued to increase.

Block “B” began to collapse from large overloads during rotation at the 49th second of the flight, and the head block, along with the third stage, broke away from the complex, which fell seven kilometers from the launch complex. The 1st and 2nd stages continued their flight. At the 51st second, "KORD" turned off all the engines of block "A", the rocket fell twenty kilometers away and exploded, forming a funnel 15 meters deep.

Boris Chertok described the situation with the 6L disaster as follows: “... The fire jets of 30 engines formed a common fire torch in such a way that a disturbing torque was created around the longitudinal axis of the rocket, unforeseen by theorists and no calculations. The controls were unable to cope with this disturbance, and rocket No. 6L lost stability. And further: “The true disturbing moment was determined by modeling using electronic machines. At the same time, not the calculations of gas dynamics were taken as initial data, but the data of telemetric measurements actually obtained in flight.

As a result, it was shown that "the actual disturbing moment is several times greater than the maximum possible control moment, which was developed by the control nozzles along the roll at their maximum deviation."

As a result of the work of the commission investigating the cause of the accident, it was decided to install four steering engines with a thrust of 6 tons each in the first and second stages instead of six steering nozzles.

The last test of the N-1 (7L) launch vehicle with a standard LOK and LK, made in an unmanned version, was carried out on November 23, 1972. The start took place at 9.11. At the 90th second of the flight, in accordance with the program, 3 seconds before the separation of the 1st stage, the engines began to switch to the final thrust mode. Six central rocket engines were turned off, having worked out the estimated time. The rate of ascent has been drastically reduced. This caused an unforeseen water hammer, as a result of which LRE No. 4 went into resonance, from which the fuel pipelines collapsed, and a fire started. The rocket exploded at the 107th second.

Despite the fact that not a single N-1 rocket was able to complete the launch program, the designers continued to work on it. The next, fifth, start was scheduled for August 1974, but did not take place. In May 1974, the Soviet lunar program was closed, and all work on the N-1 was stopped. Two ready-to-launch rockets "8L" and "9L" were destroyed.

Only 150 NK-type engines, made for various stages of the rocket, were saved from the N-1. Nikolai Kuznetsov, despite the government's order, mothballed them and kept them for many years. As time has shown, he did it not in vain. In the 90s, they were purchased by the Americans and used on Atlas-2AR missiles (Atlas-2AR) ...

From the book Manned Flights to the Moon author Shuneiko Ivan Ivanovich

1.1. Saturn V launch vehicle

From the book Battle for the Stars-2. Space Confrontation (Part I) author Pervushin Anton Ivanovich

Project "Global Missile" On October 17, 1963, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1884 calling on all nations to refrain from launching into orbit around the Earth or placing in space nuclear weapons or any other types of weapons of mass

From the book Battle for the Stars-2. Space Confrontation (Part II) author Pervushin Anton Ivanovich

Energia launch vehicle On May 14, 1987, the TASS agency reported that from May 11 to May 13, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev was at the Baikonur cosmodrome and in the city of Leninsk. During his stay in these places, he had numerous meetings and conversations with scientists,

From the book I want to know everything! author Tomilin Anatoly Nikolaevich

Photon rocket Another way to create thrust is the photon rocket. The principle of its operation is quite simple. If there is a powerful source of light (or any other electromagnetic) waves on the spacecraft, then by sending them in one direction, it is possible, as in the case of particles

From the book Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon author Pishkevich Dennis

P. Klushantsev SPACE ROCKET What is a space rocket? How is it organized? How does it fly? Why do people travel in space on rockets? It would seem that we have known all this for a long time and well. But just in case, let's check ourselves. Let's repeat the alphabet. Our planet Earth

From the book Rockets and Space Flight by Leigh Willy

Prelude: The Rocket The Germans' long-planned rocket attack on England was finally carried out. The target was London. The German rocket was an impressive technical achievement ... Its maximum speed was about four thousand miles per hour, and its time

From the author's book

MYSTERIES OF SEA DISASTERS The idea of ​​using "death rays" interested the military of many countries. Moreover, some experts argued that this type of weapon already exists and has been used in practice - to destroy warships. September 11, 1905,

From the author's book

A rocket as an airplane Not only the choice of target, successful or unsuccessful solutions to the constructive problems of the spacecraft themselves determine the possibilities and prospects of space technology. The economic side of the matter will be no less important: what time does one or another

From the author's book

ARTILLERY CARRIER "SO-TO" On the basis of "Ha-go" in 1940, an armored "carrier" for the 37-mm anti-tank gun "94" was produced. The undercarriage was changed to increase the length of the supporting surface: one rear track roller with a semi-elliptical was added to each side.

From the author's book

Rocket with "special ammunition" Launcher RPK-1 "Whirlwind" The first PLRK, created for surface ships under the leadership of N.P. Mazurov, became the RPK-1 "Whirlwind" complex, which was put into service in 1968. The lead developer was NII-1 GKOT (since 1966 - MIT), in addition to which

Giant rockets were created with the sole purpose of leapfrogging ahead of the space achievements of a rival superpower

Alexander Grek

Two giant competitors

Assembly of the second stage H-1

Panorama of H-1 starting positions

One of the few drawings of the UR-700

"Saturn-5" at the starting position

In a horizontal view, "Saturn-5" could only be seen in the Museum of Space Technology

"Proton" - a prototype of the lunar rocket UR-700

This is how Vulcan could start

The first Soviet satellites shocked the United States so much that for the first time they made Americans wonder if they really are the leaders of world progress. Not only the American government considered itself wounded, but also the ordinary population of the country. What was needed was a national program that would allow one leap to restore the status quo. An adequate answer could only be the development of a super-heavy launch vehicle, which would make it possible to provide manned flights to the Moon and Mars. And in August 1958, the Office of Advanced Studies of the US Department of Defense decided to finance the development of the most powerful of all existing launch vehicles on Earth, the Saturn. Rather, it was planned to create a whole family of "Saturns", but the ultimate goal was "Saturn5" - a three-stage carrier for the lunar expedition.

Who has it harder?

Unlike similar Soviet programs, the development of Saturn was not shrouded in mystery from the very beginning. Moreover, the program was declared nationwide, and John F. Kennedy called on every American to contribute to its successful implementation. The chief designer of the most powerful launch vehicle in the world, Wernher von Braun, was also openly named. The creator of a ballistic missile for the mass destruction of the British in World War II got a chance to be rehabilitated.

In view of the openness of American work, the development of Saturn was not a secret for Soviet rocket scientists either. In the same 1958, a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the development of a domestic heavy rocket appeared - our top secret answer to the Americans. However, if von Braun proposed to use a liquid-propellant jet engine for the first stage of his rocket using well-mastered oxygen-kerosene components, and for subsequent oxygen-hydrogen pairs, then the original Soviet project provided, in addition to the oxygen-hydrogen engine of the first stage, a fantastic nuclear jet engine for the second. As a working fluid, it was supposed to use ammonia or its mixture with alcohol, all this was heated in a nuclear reactor to a temperature of 3000 degrees. Jets of hot gases would fly out through four nozzles.

The Soviet rocket builders did not have the opportunity to assess the reality of creating a nuclear engine, the topic was top secret. The engineers only heard rumors about some developments at the Kurchatov Institute, about Tupolev's attempts to install a reactor on an airplane and success in creating the first nuclear boats. It was not until 1961 that the only viable decision was made - to build a heavy rocket on liquid-propellant engines. Another year passed in disputes over who should build the rocket. Defeated the Queen. By the middle of 1962, the USSR had only the project of the heavy Royal H-1 launch vehicle ready. And in the United States, for a year now, flight tests of the first stage, the two-stage Saturn-1 launch vehicle, have been in full swing. Already at this stage the race was lost by us!

cooperative

The Saturn program is still a classic example of the organization of work on a giant project: a transparent budget, meeting deadlines and, most importantly, successful cooperation between giant competing corporations. The first stage was manufactured by Boeing, the second by Nord American Rockwell, the third by McDonnell Douglas, the instrument compartment by IBM, the engines by Rocketdyne, etc. In the USSR, it was on the lunar carrier that the main designers finally quarreled among themselves. As a result, the chief designer of the best first-stage rocket engines in the world, Valentin Glushko, refused to make engines for the royal N-1 rocket and, together with another rocket designer Vladimir Chelomey, began the independent development of a super-powerful carrier.

Korolev, when designing the N-1, made, perhaps, all the mistakes that could be made. Let's start with the fact that the designers miscalculated with the mass of the payload, which, with a launch mass of H1 of 2200 tons, was 75 tons. As it turned out much later, such a load did not allow landing people on the moon. (“Saturn-5” was originally designed for a payload of 150 tons.) The lack of powerful engines forced the installation of thirty LREs designed by Nikolai Kuznetsov, who had previously built aircraft engines, at the first stage alone, which is why the N-1, according to Glushko, “reminded not a rocket, but a warehouse of engines.

A step back was also the rejection of the well-established package scheme on the famous R-7 and from the carrier tanks. The tanks again became suspended, as on the V-2, they perceived only the hydrostatic pressure of the fuel, and the external hull resisted the dynamic loads. The giant tanks and blocks of the rocket turned out to be so large that the manufacturing plants planned to produce only transportable blocks. It was planned to carry out welding of tanks, assembly of blocks and installation of a rocket in a huge building at Baikonur, which greatly increased the cost of the carrier.

The engines of the second and third stages on the Saturn-5 ran on oxygen and hydrogen, much more efficient components than the oxygen-kerosene steam that was used in all stages of the H-1. As a result, even the modified H-1, with a launch weight of 2820 tons, put only 90 tons of payload into low orbit, while the Saturn-5, with a launch weight of 2913 tons, launched 140 tons!

Skeptics of the use of liquid hydrogen frightened designers with the following arguments: that at a temperature of -2530C all metals become brittle and that even schoolchildren know that a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is an explosive gas and the smallest leak during refueling will lead to a giant volumetric explosion. Such arguments, indeed, were suitable only for schoolchildren, but not for real professionals.

Measure three times, let go once

Reliability was the main requirement in the implementation of the Saturn program. It was decided that almost all modules should be thoroughly tested on the ground; only those that could not be tested on Earth were supposed to be tested in flight. This was due to the very high cost of flight testing. Each serial engine regularly passed fire pre-flight tests three times: two times before delivery and the third time as part of the corresponding rocket stage. In fact, all Saturn engines were reusable. Soviet rocket engines were designed for only one launch, that is, they were disposable, and only selective copies from the batch were tested. Deputy General Designer Leonid Voskresensky spoke specifically about the Soviet methodology: “If we ignore the American experience and continue to build rockets in the hope “maybe it will fly not the first time, then the second time,” then we all will have a pipe.” The intuition of the future academician did not disappoint. By 1965, the Americans had reusable engines for all stages fully tested on Earth and switched to their serial production. For the reliability of the carrier, this was of paramount importance. By the fall of 1967, the Americans announced the start of flights. According to Deputy Korolev Boris Chertok, the backlog of the Soviet program at that time was already more than two years. It was obvious that the USSR had no chance of winning the lunar race. However, none of the leaders of the Soviet missile program had the courage to report this to the government: N-1 continued to devour gigantic financial and material resources.

Lucky and Loser

The Saturn program provided for the creation of three different carriers in succession. The two-stage Saturn-1 rocket (the first stage was powered by kerosene, the second stage was powered by hydrogen), whose flight tests began back in 1961, was intended to test mock-ups of the Apollo spacecraft. The Saturn 1B, five times lighter than the Saturn 5, became the mother ship for the Apollo manned flights. Both of these ships served as prototypes for the final modification, the three-stage lunar carrier Saturn V.

The rocket was assembled in a vertical state right at the Space Center at Cape Canaveral. For this, a huge skyscraper 160 m high was built. The assembled rocket was also transported to the launch pad in a vertical state by a special caterpillar conveyor. The first stage of the Saturn 5 was equipped with five F-1 engines, each with a thrust of 695 tons, running on oxygen and kerosene. J-2 oxygen-hydrogen engines, with a thrust of 92,104 tons each, were in the second and third stages (five and one engine, respectively). Note that neither oxygen-kerosene engines with a thrust of more than 600 tons, nor powerful oxygen-hydrogen engines were even developed in the USSR at that time. The first Saturn 5 was launched on November 9, 1967, and in July 1969 Saturn 5 delivered the first expedition to the Moon. In total, several dozen launches of Saturns of various modifications were made, and not a single launch ended in disaster.

The fate of the H-1 was completely different. It was decided not to make any intermediate options, but to launch a full-size rocket right away. The first launch of the N-1 took place on February 21, 1969. The rocket stayed in the air for 69 seconds and fell 50 km from the start - the first stage engines and their control system failed. On June 3, the second H-1 was launched. Even before separation from the launch pad, one of the engines exploded, the remaining engines lifted the rocket by 200 m, after which the carrier crashed to the ground, completely destroying the launch facilities. The second launch pad, 3 km from the destroyed one, survived, but they did not dare to launch a third rocket: an engine explosion is not an accident that can be fixed in a month. And the race itself lost its meaning: in July, the Americans had already landed on the moon. However, in 1971-1972, two more unsuccessful attempts were made to launch the H-1. Missiles died at the stage of operation of the first stage. Only after that the final decision was made to stop work on H-1. The next year, 1973, became a crisis for peaceful space exploration both in the USSR and in the USA. With us, it came because of the complete failure of the lunar program. The Americans, having sent seven expeditions to the moon, faced another problem - well, they flew off, and then what? The result was the same for both sides: work on superheavy carriers was curtailed.

block rocket

Could we at least theoretically get ahead of the Americans in the lunar race? All experts agree: definitely not with the royal carrier. Not only was the carrier not ready, at the time the program was terminated, only the lunar spacesuit was fully worked out (“PM” will write about it in the next issue)!

However, there was another option. Almost simultaneously with Korolev, Vladimir Chelomei, who headed the Reutov OKB-52, proposed his project for a lunar ship and launch vehicle. Unlike the N-1, the project of Chelomeev's super-heavy launch vehicle was not utopian. Vladimir Chelomey planned to take the three-stage UR-500K already in operation, the ancestor of the modern Proton family, as the basis for the lunar carrier UR-700. The UR-500 had an unusual first stage layout. The basis was the central block tank of the oxidizer. Six blocks were hung on it, each of which consisted of a fuel tank and a first-stage engine. The advantage of this arrangement was the short length of the assembled stage. An important advantage of the UR-500 was the fact that all blocks were designed taking into account the dimensions of railway cars and platforms, as well as the width of railway tracks and the dimensions of tunnels, bridges and interchanges. The rocket was built at basic factories, and at Baikonur only relatively simple assembly from ready-made blocks took place.

None of the existing engines was suitable for such a powerful rocket. This is where the RD-253 engine, developed by Glushko for the N-1 and rejected by Korolev, came in handy. All stages of the UR-500 operated on high-boiling toxic fuel components (nitrogen tetroxide was the oxidizer, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine was the fuel). Such fuel was a necessary requirement of the military: the UR-500 was created not so much for peaceful cargo as for military cargo - from super-powerful warheads to combat rocket planes.

The lunar carrier UR-700, which allows to put into orbit a payload weighing 140 tons, was a ready-made UR-500, to which a new first stage was added - nine blocks, with one RD-270 engine in each. This unique engine with a thrust of 630 tons (more than four times more powerful than the engines of the first stage N-1) was developed specifically for the UR-700 by Valentin Glushko. Actually, this is the only complex element that needed to be developed for a new carrier. All other components had unified dimensions with the UR-500, which made it possible to produce them on the existing tooling. There was no reason to doubt that Glushko would have created such an engine: after the cessation of work on the UR-700, he created for Energia the world's most powerful rocket engine RD170 with a thrust of 740 tons! “If my version had been accepted ten or twelve years ago,” Chelomei later said, “we would have had a carrier that is not inferior to Saturn-5, but with the advantage that the top three stages are always in mass production, regardless of the lunar program ". Nobody objected to him anymore.

martian rockets

If the Soviet lunar expedition was an impossible gamble from the very beginning, then the Martian program was quite feasible. A manned flight to the Red Planet would require super-heavy rockets, twice the carrying capacity of lunar carriers. The USSR had two whole projects, both of which were in a high degree of readiness.

The first carrier for the Martian expedition was proposed by the same Chelomey. As you might guess, the existing UR-500 Proton was to become the second, third and fourth stages of the Martian UR-900. At the first stage, instead of six, as in the UR-700, it was planned to install as many as 15 engines, which would make it possible to put a mass of up to 240 tons into a reference near-Earth orbit, sufficient for a Martian spacecraft.

The second Martian carrier was proposed 20 years after the UR-900. NPO Energia has developed a project for a super-heavy launch vehicle Vulkan capable of launching 200 tons of payload into low orbits. The Vulkan was based on the already flying Energia rocket, in which, instead of four side blocks of the first stage (each with an RD-170 engine), it was planned to install eight similar blocks slightly increased in length. All the main modules and blocks for the "Volcano" were developed and mass-produced.

Mammoths

Super-heavy rockets could only exist for solving super-tasks, such as manned expeditions to the Moon or Mars. They are unsuitable for solving everyday problems of mankind. Like mammoths, these rockets are extinct. And now, even with a strong desire to establish the production of Saturn-5, N-1 or Energia, it is unrealistic: neither complete documentation, nor assembly plants, nor specialists have been preserved. Ironically, the only giant carrier that can be reanimated in case of emergency is the UR-700, which remained on paper. Almost all components for it are still mass-produced at the Plant. Khrunichev.