Three more years of frustration

TIMELINE: JAN 1963-DEC 1965

Between their success with Luna 3 in October 1959 and the opening of 1963, the Soviets suffered two failed lunar missions, five failed Mars missions, and five failed Venus missions. During those long 39 months, Sergey Korolev’s engineers had been working on a new lunar soft-lander to take advantage of the four-stage version of the R-7. Unfortunately, this new Luna would suffer an even longer and more frustrating series of failures than the Ranger crash-lander being developed by the Americans. In fact, there would be eleven failures over the three years 1963-65 before managing a soft landing, with four of the six launch failures being caused by malfunctions of the fourth stage. Of those that were successfully deployed, Luna 4 to 8, two missed the Moon and the other three crashed onto it. The real objectives of these missions were not revealed at the time. Meanwhile, in 1964-65 the LTS finally had a string of successes with Ranger 7 to 9.

fn parallel, the Soviets were applying the lessons from Venera 1 and Mars 1 in the development of the 3MV planetary spacecraft, basically an improved version of the 2MV, for the planetary launch windows of 1964 and 1965. To gain some experience with the new spacecraft, it was decided in late 1963 to make two interim flight tests, but these spacecraft were lost to launch vehicle failures on November 11, 1963 and February 19, 1964. Undeterred, wrhen the Venus launch window opened the Soviets proceeded to launch spacecraft to Venus on March 27 and April 2, 1964. Only the second spacecraft w? as launched successfully, but because it was immediately clear that on board failures would prevent it from reaching its target it was named Zond 1 instead of being given a Venera designation. A launch to Mars – was accomplished successfully on November 30, but once again the spacecraft was sufficiently crippled that it would not make its target and so it was named Zond 2.

The loss of so much hard work must have been doubly galling with the success of the Mariner 4 flyby of Mars on July 15, 1965. As with Venus, the LTS had somehow reached Mars first! Troubled by the significant problems suffered by Zond 1 and 2, the Soviets decided to conduct another 3MV test flight. Launched on July 18, 1965,

W. T. Huntress and M. Y. Marov, Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies І Іл

and Discoveries, Springer Praxis Books 1, DOl 10.1007/978-1-4419-7898-1 9,

© Springer Science 4-Business Media, LLC 2011

outside a launch window, Zond. 3 was unable to reach Mars but it could fly the kind of trajectory that would be used by a real mission. The timing of the departure was arranged so that it could test its camera system by photographing the far side of the Moon. It exercised its navigation systems, propulsion system, flight and instrument operations, and returned its pictures. Unfortunately communications were lost before it reached the equivalent of Mars distance, preventing it from demonstrating its deep space capabilities.

The Zond 3 experience paid off on the flights of Venera 2 and Venera 3, both of which were launched later in November 1965, the first equipped to make a flyby and the second with an entry probe. They flew without serious problems and became the first Soviet planetary spacecraft to reach their target. But they added to rheir maker’s woes by both losing communication, Venera 2 just as it arrived and Venera 3 when
seventeen days from its target on a collision trajectory. Neither mission returned any data from Venus.

The years 1964-65 were crucial turning points in the Soviet space program. Since 1959 OKB-1 had been working on a plan to send eosmonauts on circumlunar flights, and had designed the Soyuz system for this objective. It had no plans to land people on the Moon. The Soviets initially saw the US stated intention to land a man on the Moon as mere hyperbole, but by 1964 it had become clear that major resources had been assigned to the program and that the development of the necessary rockets and spacecraft was progressing. Confident that their Soyuz could beat the Americans to a circumlunar mission but reluctant to be upstaged by a lunar landing, the Politburo directed Korolev in August 1964 to proceed with landing cosmonauts on the Moon in addition to performing the circumlunar program. However, in what would prove to be a huge management mistake, the government divided the development work for these programs amongst competing design bureaus without central leadership or responsibility. The space program was reorganized and additional resources applied. To manage all the work, new design bureaus were established and responsibilities distributed. At this point Soviet space policy underwent a fundamental change, and instead of pursuing long standing plans for the conquest of space it began to directly compete with the American program.

The other issue forcing a shake up in the Soviet space program was the long string of robotic lunar and planetary program failures between 1960 and 1965. Thus far. Korolev had been responsible for virtually all types of Soviet spacecraft and now he had been given the further task of overtaking the Americans in the race to the Moon. By his own admission. OKB-1 was overburdened and unable to devote enough time and resources to the robotic missions. In March 1965, on the advice of Keldysh, he asked his friend Georgi Babakin. who headed NPO-Lavochkin, to take over after the current production run of lunar and planetary spacecraft at OKB-1 ran its course. In April, Korolev handed over OKB-l’s plans and knowledge base to Lavochkin. The remaining robotic spacecraft were launched during the rest of the year, ending w ith Luna 8 and Venera 3, while Lavochkin designed modifications and set up to produce new’ spacecraft.