Category Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Neither the Russians, Americans, British nor French were under any misapprehen­sions about the achievement of von Braun and his colleagues. Each side dispatched its top rocket experts to Germany to pick over the remains of the A-4. For one brief moment in time, all the world’s great rocket designers were within a few kilometres of each another. Von Braun was there, though busily trying to exfiltrate himself to America. For the Soviet Union, Valentin Glushko, Sergei Korolev, Vasili Mishin, Georgi Tyulin and Boris Chertok. For the United States, Theodor von Karman, William Pickering and Tsien Hsue Shen (who eventually became the founder of the Chinese space programme). Later in 1945, Britain was to fire three V-2s over the North Sea. Britain’s wartime allies were invited to watch. The British admitted one ‘Colonel Glushko’ but they refused admittance to another ‘Captain Korolev’ because his paperwork was not in order and he had to watch the launching from the perimeter fence. The British were not fooled by these civilians in military uniforms, for they could give remarkably little account of their frontline experience (or wounds) in the course of four years’ warfare.

Korolev and Glushko returned to Russia where Stalin put them quickly to work to build up a Soviet rocket programme. The primary aim was to develop missiles and if the engineers entertained ambitions for using them for space travel, they may not have kept Stalin so fully informed. The rocket effort was reorganized, a series of design bureaux being created from then onwards, the lead one being Korolev’s own, OKB-1. Glushko was, naturally, put in charge of engines (OKB-456). In 1946, the Council of Designers was created, Korolev as chief designer. This was a significant development, for it included all the key specialisms necessary for the later lunar programme: engines (Valentin Glushko), radio systems (Mikhail Ryazansky), guidance (Nikolai Pilyugin), construction (Vladimir Barmin) and gyros (Viktor Kuznetsov). In 1947, the Russians managed to fire the first of a number of German A-4s from a missile base, Kapustin Yar, near Stalingrad on the River Volga. The Russian reverse-engineered version was called the R-1 (R for rocket, Raket in Russian) and its successors became the basis for the postwar Soviet missile forces. Animals were later launched on up-and-down missions on later derivatives, like the R-5.

The significant breakthrough that made possible the development of space travel was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In the early 1950s, as the Cold War intensified, the rival countries attempted to develop the means of delivering a nuclear payload across the world. The ICBM was significant for space travel because the lifting power, thrust and performance required of an ICBM was similar to that required for getting a satellite into orbit. In essence, if you could launch an ICBM, you could launch a satellite. And if you could launch a satellite, you could later send a small payload to the moon.

Approval for a Soviet ICBM was given in 1953. An ICBM in the 1950s was a step beyond the A-4, as much as the A-4 of the 1940s was a step beyond the tiny amateur rockets of the 1930s. Korolev was the mastermind of what became known as the R-7 rocket. It was larger than any rocket built before. It used a fuel mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene, a significant improvement on the alcohol used on the German A-4. Its powerful engines were designed and built by Valentin Glushko, whose own design bureau, OKB-456, was now fully operational. The real breakthrough for the R-7 was that in addition to the core stage with four engines (block A), four stages of similar dimensions were grouped around its side (blocks B, V, G and D). This was

called a ‘packet’ design – an idea of Mikhail Tikhonravov dating to 1947 when he worked for NII-4. No fewer than 20 engines fired at liftoff. Work began on this project over 1950-3.

The new rocket required a new cosmodrome. Kapustin Yar was too close to American listening bases in Turkey. A new site was selected at Tyuratam, north of a

bend in the Syr Darya river, deep in Kazakhstan. The launch site was called Baiko- nour, but this was a deliberate deception. Baikonour was actually a railhead 280 km to the north, but the Russians figured that if they called it Baikonour and if nuclear war broke out, the Americans would mistakenly target their warheads on the small, undefended unfortunate railway station to the north rather than the real rocket base. Construction of the new cosmodrome started in 1955, the labourers living and work­ing in primitive and hostile conditions. Their first task was to construct, out of an old quarry, a launch pad and flame pit. The first pad was built to take the new ICBM, the R-7.

Scientific direction for the space programme was provided by the Academy of Sciences. The Academy dated back to the time of Peter the Great. Following the European tradition, he established a centre of learning for Russia’s academic com­munity in St Petersburg. This had survived the revolution, though now it was renamed the Soviet Academy of Sciences. For the political leadership’s point of view, the Academy provided a visible and acceptable international face for a space programme that had its roots in military imperatives. The chief expert on the space programme within the Academy of Sciences was Mstislav Keldysh, a quiet, graying, mathematical academician. Mstislav Keldysh was son of Vsevolod M. Keldysh (1878-1965), one of the great engineers of the early Soviet state, the designer of the Moscow Canal, the Moscow Metro and the Dniepr Aluminium Plant. Young Mstislav was professor of aerohydrodynamics in Moscow University, an academician in 1943 at the tender age of 32 and from 1953 director of the Institute of Applied Mathematics. Following Stalin’s death, he had introduced computers into Soviet industry. He was on the praesidium of the Academy from 1953, won the Lenin Prize in 1957 and later, from 1961 to 1975, was academy president. He was the most prestigious scientist in the Soviet Union, though he made little of the hundreds of awards with which he was showered in his lifetime. His support and that of the academy for Korolev and Tikhonravov was to become critical.

In the 1950s, the idea of a Russian space programme enjoyed discussion in the popular Soviet media. The golden age of the 1920s had come to an abrupt end in 1936 and talking about space travel remained dangerous as long as Stalin ruled the Kremlin. When the political environment thawed out, ideas around space travel once again flourished in the Soviet media – newspapers, magazines and film. Soviet astronomers resumed studies that had been interrupted by the war. A department of astrobotany was founded by the Kazakh Academy of Sciences and its director, Gavril Tikhov, publicized the possibililities of life on Mars and Venus. His books were wildly popular and he toured the country giving lectures.

By 1957, the key elements of the Russian space programme were in place:

• A strong theoretical base.

• Practical experience of building engines from the 1920s and small rockets from the

1930s.

• A council of designers, led by a chief designer.

• A lead design bureau, OKB-1, with a specialized department, #9.

• Specialized design bureaux for all critical support areas, such as engines.

• An academy of sciences, to provide scientific direction.

• Launch sites in Kapustin Yar and Baikonour.

• Popular and political support.

• A large rocket, completing design.

REFERENCES

[1] Gorin, Peter A: Rising from the cradle – Soviet public perceptions of space flight before Sputnik. From: Roger Launius, John Logsdon and Robert Smith: Reconsidering Sputnik – 40 years since the Soviet satellite. Harwood Academic, Amsterdam, 2000.

[2] Siddiqi, Asif: Early satellite studies in the Soviet Union, 1947-57. Part 2. Spaceflight, vol. 39, #11, November 1997.

[3] Siddiqi, Asif: The decision to go to the moon. Spaceflight,

– vol. 40, # 5, May 1998 (part 1);

– vol. 40, #6, June 1998 (part 2).

[4] Varfolomeyev, Timothy: Soviet rocketry that conquered space. Spaceflight, in 13 parts:

1 Vol. 37, #8, August 1995;

2 Vol. 38, # 2, February 1996;

3 Vol. 38, #6, June 1996;

4 Vol. 40, #1, January 1998;

5 Vol. 40, #3, March 1998;

6 Vol. 40, # 5, May 1998;

7 Vol. 40, #9, September 1998;

8 Vol. 40, #12, December 1998;

9 Vol. 41, #5, May 1999;

10 Vol. 42, # 4, April 2000;

11 Vol. 42, #10, October 2000;

12 Vol. 43, #1, January 2001;

13 Vol. 43, #4, April 2001 (referred to as Varfolomeyev, 1995-2001).

[5] Harford, Jim: Korolev – how one man masterminded the Soviet drive to beat America to the moon. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1997.

[6] Khrushchev, Sergei: The first Earth satellite – a retrospective view from the future. From: Roger Launius, John Logsdon and Robert Smith: Reconsidering Sputnik – 40 years since the Soviet satellite. Harwood Academic, Amsterdam, 2000.

[7] Matson, Wayne R: Cosmonautics – a colourful history. Cosmos Books, Washington DC, 1994.

[8] Siddiqi, Asif: The challenge to Apollo. NASA, Washington DC, 2000.

The full designs of the UR-700 and the R-56 have not been fully revealed, though it is now possible to speculate with accuracy what they may have been like [7]. Like the N-1, the R-56 offered a minimalist lunar mission, with a lunar-bound payload of 30 tonnes. Chief designer was Mikhail Yangel. Born in Irkutsk on 25th October 1911 (os), he was a graduate of the Moscow Aviation Institute and after the war worked in Korolev’s OKB-1. In 1954, he was given his own design institute, OKB-586 in Dnepropetrovsk. A model of the R-56 now appears in the company museum and sketches have been issued. The R-56 was a three-stage rocket, 68 m long, each cluster 6.5 m in diameter. To get from the Ukraine to Kazakhstan, it would be transported by sea – but this could be done on barges from the Dnepropetrovsk factory on the inland waterway system of the Soviet Union via the Syr Darya to Tyuratam.

The principal difference between the N-1 and the R-56 was the use of engines. For the R-56, Valentin Glushko’s OKB-456, the old Gas Dynamics Laboratory, devel­oped large, high-performance engines called RD-270. For many years, it had been assumed that the Soviet Union had been unable to develop such engines, but this was not the case. Unlike the American engines, which used liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, Glushko used storable fuels. His engines used unsymmetrical dimethyl methyl hydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide, producing a vacuum thrust of between 640 and 685 tonnes, a specific impulse of 322 sec and a pressure of 266 atmospheres in its combustion chamber. Each RD-270 weighed 4.7 tonnes, was 4.8 m tall and could be gimballed. Valentin Glushko managed to build 22 experi­mental models of the RD-270 and 27 firings were carried out in the course of October 1967 to July 1969, all showing great promise. Three engines fired twice and one three times.

4.85 m 3.3m

266 atmospheres

3,056

322 sec

4.77 tonnes (dry) 5.6 tonnes (fuelled)

In the event, the R-56 did not turn out to be a serious competitor. There is some suggestion that Yangel saw the damage being done by the rivalry within the Soviet space industry and did not wish to press a third project that would divert resources even further. Authority to develop the R-56 seems to have been given by the govern­ment in April 1962, but a subsequent government decision in June 1964 ordered a cessation of work.

Sputnik changed everything. Most of the great historical events of our time make an immediate impact that fades over time. Sputnik was different. When the first Earth satellite was launched, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev calmly took the call from Baikonour Cosmodrome, thanked Korolev courteously and went to bed. Pravda did report the launching the next day, but well down the page, blandly headed ‘Tass communique’. In the West, the British Broadcasting Corporation announced the launching at the end of its late news bulletin, a certain vocal hesitancy indicating that neither the station nor the announcer knew exactly what to make of this strange event.

Whatever the political leadership, ordinary people knew. As Korolev and his colleagues took the long train journey back from Baikonour Cosmodrome, people came onto the platforms to stop the train and meet the engineers concerned. There was a palpable, rising air of excitement as they drew close to Moscow. By this stage, people throughout the Soviet Union were talking and chattering about this extraordinary event. The next day, Pravda made the satellite the only front-page story. Khrushchev was soon bragging about its achievements to foreign leaders.

But this was as nothing compared with the pandemonium in the United States, which ranged between the hysterical and apoplectic. There was admiration for the Soviet achievement, but it was couched in the regret that America had not been first. The Americans had been publicizing their plans to launch an Earth satellite for a number of years. Because America was the world’s leading technological country, nobody had ever suggested that the United States might not be first: the very idea was unthinkable. In fact, the Russians had also been broadcasting, very publicly and in some technical detail, their intentions of launching an Earth satellite. Although the first Sputnik was a surprise to the American people, it was not a surprise to the Soviet people, who had been expecting it and for whom space travel had achieved an acceptance within popular culture from the 1920s, renewed in the 1950s.

The first Sputnik made a deep impact on ordinary Americans. The rocket body of the Sputnik entered orbit and could be seen tracking across the cooling night autumn skies of North America. The long aerials on the back of the spacecraft transmitted beep! beep! beep! signals that could be picked up by relatively simple receivers. Within months, polling found that almost all Americans had heard of the Sputnik and nearly everyone had comments to make about it.

More is known of the UR-700 [8] and in recent years the managers of the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Museum in Kaluga helpfully put a model on display. The UR-700 would
have a thrust of 5,760 tonnes, able to put in orbit 151 tonnes, a much better per­formance than the Saturn V. It would have been a huge rocket at take-off: 74 m tall, 17.6m in diameter and a liftoff weight of 4,823 tonnes [9].

The UR-700 combined a mixture of strap-on rockets and fuel tanks (like the Proton) clustered around the core stage, with the three strap-ons jettisoned at 155 sec and the three core engines burning out at 300 sec. It was a typically ingenious Chelomei design, one building on the proven engineering achievement of the Proton. As for power, the engine in development for the R-56, the RD-270, was transferred from the R-56 to the UR-700. Chelomei’s UR-700 had a single third stage, an RD-254 engine based on the Proton RD-253.

The UR-700 was a direct ascent rocket, which Chelomei believed was safer than a profile involving rendezvous in lunar orbit. Outlines of the UR-700 moonship are available. These were for a 50-tonne cylindrical moonship with conical top entering lunar orbit, 21 m long, 2.8 m in diameter, with a crew of two. The moonship would descend to the lunar surface backwards, touching down on a series of six flat skids. The top part, 9.3 tonnes, would blast off directly to Earth, the only recovered payload being an Apollo-style cabin that Chelomei later developed for his Almaz space stations. In his design, Chelomei emphasized the importance of using multiply redundant systems, the use of N2O4/UDMH fuels, exhaustive ground testing and the construction of all equipment in the bureau before shipping to the launch site. One reason for its slow pace of development was Chelomei’s concentration on intensive ground testing [10].

Like the R-56, the UR-700 was proposed as a moon project before the decision of August 1964. The N-1 was made the approved man-on-the-moon project in August 1964 and so, in October 1964, the UR-700 was cancelled and, as we saw, work on the R-56 was also terminated. Never one to give up, Vladimir Chelomei continued to advocate his UR-700 design, even getting approval for preliminary design from the Space Ministry in October 1965, much to Korolev’s fury. The following year, Chelomei got as far as presenting designs showing how the N-1 pads at Baikonour could be converted to handle his UR-700. Chelomei formally presented the UR-700 to a government commission in November 1966 as an alter­native, better moon plan than the N-1. The government politely agreed to further research on the UR-700 ‘at the preliminary level’ (basic research only) and this was reconfirmed in February 1967. Unfazed by this, Chelomei’s blueprints for the UR-700 were signed on 21st July 1967, approved by party and government resolution # 1070­363 on 17th November 1967, three years after the N-1 had been agreed as the final moon design!

Designs for the UR-700 moonship were finalized on 30th September 1968. First launch was set for May 1972 and after a successful second unmanned flight, the third would have a crew (similar to the American Saturn V) with lunar landings in the mid- 1970s. Although a certain amount of work was done on the project in 1968, it is unclear if much was done thereafter and it does not seem as if any metal was cut. The programme was not finally cancelled until 31st December 1970. In fairness to Chelomei, he never claimed, at least at this stage, that his UR-700 could beat the Americans to the moon. It is possible he saw the UR-700 as a successor project to the

N-l, or one that could later be adopted if the N-l faltered. The UR-700 plan certainly had many fans, quite apart from Chelomei himself, believing it to be a much superior design to the old and cumbersome N-l. However, its reintroduction into the moon programme in late 1967 was yet another example of the rivalry, disorder, waste and chaos enveloping the Soviet moon programme.

Contrary to Western impressions that the Soviet space programme was centralized, in fact it operated in a decentralized, competitive way. Thus, in the period after the government decision of 1964, three design bureaux were at work not only designing but building rival moon projects. Again, this marked a key difference from the American programme. In the United States, rival corporations submitted proposals and bids, but only one was chosen to develop the project and build the hardware (the company concerned was called the prime contractor).

In the Soviet Union, by contrast, rival design institutes not only designed but built hardware. Decisions about which would fly were taken much later. As a result, the Soviet moon programme, and indeed other key programmes, contained several rival, parallel projects. This was something neither appreciated nor imagined to be possible in the West at the time. The rivalry between designers was at a level that could not have been conceived on the outside. At one stage, no less a person than Nikita Khrushchev

The final route decided 65

tried to mediate between Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, inviting the two to his summer house for a peace summit (he was not successful).

Taking advantage of the public reaction, Korolev set new tasks for Mikhail Tikhon- ravov and his ‘planning department for the development of space apparatus’. Korolev had first raised the idea of lunar exploration with government as far back as a meeting on 30th April 1955, but nothing had come of it. Now the climate was quite different. Popular enthusiasm for spaceflight had reignited in a surge of public interest remi­niscent of the glorious 1920s and early 1930s. Three design groups were set up: one for a manned spacecraft, one for communications satellites and one for automatic lunar spacecraft. The lunar group was put under the charge of a brilliant young designer, then only 30 years old, Gleb Yuri Maksimov (1926-2000).

Based on discussions with him, on 28th January 1958, Tikhonravov and Korolev sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the government called On the launches of rockets to the moon (sometimes also translated as A programme for the investigation of the moon). This proposed that two

spacecraft be sent to the moon. One would hit the moon, while the other would take photographs of its hidden far side and transmit them to the Earth by television. The impacting probe would signify its arrival either by the cessation of its telemetry signal, or through the igniting of explosives, which could be seen from the Earth. The government agreed to the proposal within two months, on 20th March 1958. Contrary to Western impressions that Soviet spaceshots were ordered up by the political leadership, the opposite is true. Most of the early Soviet space missions resulted from proposals by the engineers, convincing government of the political and publicity advantages.

Tikhonravov and Korolev followed this with a grander plan for space exploration that summer. Called Most promising works in the development of outer space, this was an audacious plan outlining a vast programme of space exploration – variations of this title have also appeared (e. g., Preliminary considerations for the prospects of the mastery of outer space), probably a function of translation. None of this was evident in the West – indeed, details of Most promising works in the development of outer space were not published until decades later. Yet, the plan outlined, at this extraordinarily early stage, how the Soviet Union was to conquer the cosmos. This was what they proposed:

• Small research station of 15 to 20 kg to land on the moon.

• Satellite to photograph the lunar surface.

• Upgrade the R-7 launcher to four stages to send a probe to orbit the moon and return films to Earth.

• Send robotic spacecraft to Mars and Venus.

• Develop Earth orbit rendezvous.

• Manned spacecraft for flight around the moon.

• Eventually, manned flights to the moon, Venus and Mars.

• Goal of permanent colony on the moon.

• Development of the critical path technologies for rendezvous, life support systems and long-distance communications.

Now Maksimov’s group soon came up with its first set of detailed designs. Four types of spacecraft were proposed. They were called the Ye or E series, after the sixth letter in the Russian alphabet (the first five had already been assigned to other projects). These are shown in Table 2.1.

These plans were soon modified. The Ye-4 probe was the problem one. Nuclear experts warned that a nuclear explosion on the moon would, without an atmosphere there, be difficult to observe and that the visibility of even a conventional explosion was uncertain, so this probe was dropped. The engineers also worried about how to track a small spacecraft en route to the moon. They came up with the idea of fitting 1 kg of sodium or barium to be released during the journey. This would create a cloud of particles that could be spotted by the right sensors. Once the moon had been hit (Ye-1), they would move quickly on to farside photography missions (Ye-2, 3).

Thus the resolution of August 1964 was much less decisive than one might expect. Not only did it not resolve the rivalry between different projects, but it did not ensure the rapid progress of those that were decided. Progress on the moon plan between August 1964 and late 1966 was quite slow. Not until October 1966 were steps taken to accelerate the favoured programme, the N-1, with the formation of the State Commis­sion for the N-1, also known as the Lunar Exploration Council.

In September 1966, a 34-strong expert commission was called in to review the moon programme, decide between the N-1 and UR-700 and settle the continued rivalries once and for all. Mstislav Keldysh was appointed chairman and it reported at the end of November. Despite impressive lobbying efforts by Chelomei and Glushko to replace the N-1 with the UR-700, the original plan won the day. The commission’s report, confirming the N-1 for the moon landing and the UR-500K for the circumlunar mission was ratified by the government in a joint resolution on 4th February 1967 (About the course of work in the creation of the UR-500K-L-1), which specified test flights later that year and a landing on the moon in 1968. The joint resolution reinforced the August 1964 resolution and upgraded the landing on the moon to ‘an objective of national significance’. This meant it was a priority of priorities, enabling design bureaux to command resources at will. The real problem was that the Americans had decided on their method of going to the moon five years earlier and Apollo had been an objective of national importance for six years. In effect, the February 1967 resolution hardened up on the decision of August 1964. The Russian moon plan was now officially set in stone (though, in practice, the UR-700 was not finally killed off for another three years). The Keldysh Commission of 1966 and the resolution of 1967 would have been unnecessary had not the rival designers continually tried to re-make the original decision. It was a dramatic contrast to the single-mindedness of the Apollo programme and the discipline of American industry.

There were considerable differences between how the Russians and Americans organized their respective moon programmes. In the United States, there had indeed between intense rivalries as to which company or corporation would get the contract for building the hardware of the American moon programme. Once decisions were made, though, they were not contested or re-made and rival pro­grammes did not proceed in parallel. In the United States, the decision as to how to go to the moon was the focus of intense discussions over 1961-2. No equivalent discussion took place in the Soviet Union. Until 1964, Earth orbit rendezvous, using the Soyuz complex to achieve a circumlunar mission, was the only method under consideration. When the N-1 was adopted as the landing programme in August 1964, lunar orbit rendezvous was abruptly accepted as the method best suited to its

dimensions, despite the investment of three years of design work in the Soyuz complex then reaching fruition.

Chelomei’s UR-700 was a direct challenge to this approach and Chelomei raised questions about the risks involved in lunar orbit rendezvous. However, the debate in the Soviet Union was less about how to go to the moon, but, instead: which bureau, which rocket, which engines and which fuels?

RUSSIA’S THREE WAYS TO GO

R-56 UR-700

Korolev

OKB-l

LOR

l04m

2,850 tonnes 33 tonnes NK-31

Yangel OKB-586 LOR 68 m

1,421 tonnes 30 tonnes RD-270

Chelomei OKB-52 Direct ascent 74m

3,400 tonnes 50 tonnes RD-270

Key government and party decisions in the moon race

3 Aug 1964 On work involving the study of the moon and outer space.

16 Nov 1966 Keldysh Commission.

4 Feb 1967 About the course of work in the creation of the UR-500K-L-1.

Thus, by now, the Soviet Union had made a plan for sending cosmonauts around the moon and a separate plan for landing on it. A plan had been worked out for both missions. Hard work lay ahead in constructing the rockets, the spacecraft, the hard­ware, the software, the support systems and in training a squad of cosmonauts to fly the missions. In the meantime, unmanned spacecraft were expected to pave the way to the moon.