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TESTING THE LK AND THE LOK
Other Soviet equipment for the moon landing was tested. Would the Russian lunar module have worked? Yes, it probably would have, for in 1970-1 the LK was put through a series of exhaustive tests in Earth orbit which it passed with flying colours. Block E of the lunar module had been tested in Zagorsk 26 times, but never in flying conditions.
These were called the T2K tests. The lunar lander, the LK, was tested without its landing legs, since these were primarily propulsion tests of the block E system with its 2.05-tonne thrust, intended to simulate the two major burns of the lunar surface landing and then the subsequent ascent to orbit. The Russians did three tests, all unmanned – while, many years earlier, the Americans had also carried out three (Apollo 5, January 1968, unmanned; Apollo 9, March 1969 and Apollo 10, May 1969, both manned).
The first T2K was launched by a Soyuz rocket on a sunny morning, 24th November 1970, under the designation Cosmos 379, witnessed by its designers. It entered orbit of 192 km to 230 km. On 27th November, after simulating the three-day journey to the moon, the LK fired its variable throttle motor to simulate the lunar landing, descent and hovering over the moon’s surface (250 to 270m/sec AL), changing its orbit to an apogee of 1,120 km. On the 28th, after simulating a day on the surface of the moon, as it were, the LK fired its engine again to model the lunar ascent. Everything went perfectly. This was necessarily a powerful burn, 1,320 to 1,520 m/sec AL). Cosmos 379 ended up in a 14,300-km high orbit, eventually burning up in September 1983.
Further tests of the LK moon cabin were made by Cosmos 398 (26th February 1971) and Cosmos 434 (12th August 1971). On each mission, the landing frame was left in an orbit of 120 km, the ascent cabin much farther out. Cosmos 398 crashed into the South Atlantic in December 1995. In the case of Cosmos 434, the final orbit was 186 by 11,834 km. Unlike the American lander, the landing frame had no propulsive engine in its own right.
The end of the Cosmos 434 mission had a treble irony. Only days after its conclusion, the N1-L3 plan for landing on the moon was cancelled as Mishin persuaded the government to go for a more ambitious lunar-landing plan using a different method, the N1-L3M. Second, that October LK designer Mikhail Yangel invited guests to attend his 60th birthday party, but he died suddenly just as they began to arrive at his home. Hopefully, he realized before his death just what a fine lunar module he had designed and built. Third, in August 1981, Cosmos 434 began to spiral down to Earth. Only three years earlier, a nuclear-powered surveillance satellite had caused a scare when it began to tumble out of orbit. This time, the Soviet Union assured the world there was no need to worry since, because Cosmos 434 was ‘a prototype lunar cabin’, it had no nuclear fuel. This was the first time the Soviet Union had ever publicly admitted, although inadvertently, to the existence of its manned moon-landing programme.
Thankfully, these orbiting Cosmos were not the only LKs completed. Examples of the LK can still be found: in the Moscow Aviation Institute; the Mozhaisky Military Institute of St Petersburg; and at the home of its builder, now called NPO Yuzhnoye, in Dnepropetrovsk. NPO Yuzhnoye has an exhibit of its great engine. And for those contemplating a return to the moon, Yuzhnoye has kept the blueprints too.
The LK tests
24 Nov 1970 Cosmos 379
26 Feb 1971 Cosmos 398
12 Aug 1971 Cosmos 434
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The LK manoeuvres
Source: Clark (1988) |
What about the LOK and block D? Granted that a working version of the LOK was never successfully launched, it is impossible to comment on its performance. With the flight of Zond around the moon (1969-70) and the requalification of Soyuz (1968-9), it is reasonable to presume that it would have been a successful spacecraft. The first LOK was scheduled to be tested on the fourth flight of the N-1 in 1972. In the meantime, it was decided to proceed with tests of block D for its lunar orbit mission. The types of manoeuvres planned for block D had, unlike Zond and Soyuz, not been tested. Block D engine firings were required for mid-course corrections outbound, to put the complex in lunar orbit and then, second, carry out the powered descent
initiation down to 1,500 m over the surface. They were carried out with a block D attached to a modified Zond and called the KL-1E (‘E’ for experimental).
The first, on 28th November 1969, failed when the first stage of the Proton exploded. The second was Cosmos 382, sent aloft on 2nd December 1970. The manoeuvres simulated the lunar orbit insertion burn, course corrections and the powered descent, respectively. All seem to have gone perfectly. Cosmos 382 aroused some interest at the time. Western experts could not understand why the Russians were flying spacecraft in lunar-type manoeuvres long after Russia had lost a moon race it now claimed it had never been part of.
Block D tests, 1969-70
18 Nov 1969 KL-1E test: failure
2 Dec 1970 KL-1E test: Cosmos 382
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Manoeuvres of Cosmos 382 L-1E
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Source: Clark (1988, 1993)
Following the success of Soyuz 4 and 5, a further manned Earth orbital test of the lunar orbit rendezvous manoeuvre was planned, similar to those which the United States carried out on Apollo 9. This was called the Kontakt mission, and its specific purpose was to test the rendezvous mechanisms of the LOK and the LK lunar lander. Kontakt was the docking system that would have been used had the original Soyuz complex gone ahead. Kontakt was developed by Alexei Bogomolov of the Moscow Engineering Institute. It might earlier have been used for Soyuz Earth orbital missions, but a rival system called Igla was adopted instead. Kontakt came back into the reckoning for the manned lunar landing, being adopted for the programme partly on account of its simplicity.
Tests of the Kontakt system in Earth orbit were clearly essential before it was committed to lunar orbit rendezvous. These were planned for 1970 and two Soyuz were readied for the mission, one active, one passive. The active crew was Anatoli Filipchenko and Georgi Grechko, the crew for the passive Soyuz was Vasili Lazarev and Oleg Makarov. The mission was assigned high priority, with up to 16 cosmonauts being put through the training programme for the mission. A second, follow-up double mission seems also to have been envisaged. Bogomolov’s delivery of the Kontakt system, originally for 1970, kept slipping. In August 1971, the LOK and LK were abandoned and the missions were formally terminated in October 1971. The four Soyuz in preparation were dismantled and the parts used for other missions.