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Launch vehicle "N-1": history of disasters
Korolev's place as head of OKB-1 (since 1966 - Central Design Bureau of Experimental Mechanical Engineering, TsKBEM) was taken by Vasily Mishin. Unfortunately, this wonderful designer did not have the tenacity that allowed Korolev 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 consequence, the Soviet lunar program. This is a naive delusion.
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, construction of the launch complex (site No. 110) was completed at Baikonur, but he still had to wait a long time for his rocket.
The first N-1 appeared at the cosmodrome only on May 7, 1968. There, at Baikonur, dynamic tests, technological development of the assembly process, and fitting of the carrier at the launch complex took place. For this purpose, two copies of the N-1 rocket, known under the designations “1L” and “2L”, were used. They were not destined to take off, and they were not created for flying.
In the final version, the N-1 (11A52) rocket had the following characteristics. Dimensions: total length (with the spacecraft) - 105.3 meters, maximum body diameter - 17 meters, launch weight - 2750–2820 tons, launch thrust - 4590 tons.
"N-1" was made with a transverse division of steps. The 1st stage (block “A”) had 30 single-chamber main rocket engines “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 pairs of oppositely located peripheral rocket engines of block “A” turned off. The 2nd stage (block “B”) had 8 single-chamber main liquid rocket engines “NK-15V” with high-altitude nozzles and 4 steering nozzles for roll control. The launch vehicle could fly with one pair of liquid rocket engines of block “B” turned off. The 3rd stage (block “B”) had 4 single-chamber main rocket engines “NK-19” and 4 steering nozzles for roll control and could fly with one rocket engine turned off.
All engines were developed at the Kuibyshev Aviation Design Bureau (now Samara NPO Trud) under the leadership of Chief Designer Nikolai Kuznetsov. Kerosene was used as fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer.
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, thermostatted and powered.
The crew had to board the ship through these towers. After the LV was refueled and the crew landed, the service tower was moved 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. To remove gases when starting the first stage engines, three concrete channels were made. In total, more than 90 structures were built at site No. 110.
In addition, at site No. 112, an installation and testing building for 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 underwent pre-flight checks and was installed with other LRK units in the space facilities assembly and testing building at site No. 2B. After that, it was closed with a fairing and sent by rail to the gas station at site No. 112A, where its engines were refueled. Then the fueled "LRK" was transported to the rocket and mounted on the third stage of the launch vehicle, after which the entire complex was transported to the launch position.
The first flight 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 the LOK and LK, the automatic ship 7K-L1S (11F92) was installed, externally reminiscent of the 7K-L1, but equipped with many of the systems of the L-3 ship. and powerful photographic equipment. The leading designer of the 11F92 product was Vladimir Bugrov. If the launch was successful, the 7L-L1S spacecraft was supposed to enter the orbit of the Moon, 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 underground through the multi-meter thickness of concrete. In the first seconds of the flight, there was a report from the telemeterists that two engines out of thirty were turned off.
Observers who, despite the strict security regime, managed to monitor the flight from the surface, said that the torch seemed unusually rigid, “did not flutter,” and was three to four times longer than the length of the rocket body.
After ten seconds, the roar of the engines disappeared. The hall became completely quiet. The second minute of the flight began and suddenly the torch went out...
It was 69 seconds into the flight. The burning rocket was removed without an engine flame. At a slight angle to the horizon, it was still moving upward, then it tilted and, leaving a trail of smoke without falling apart, began to fall.
It’s not fear or annoyance, but some complex mixture of severe internal pain and a feeling of absolute helplessness that you experience while watching an emergency rocket approaching the ground. Before your eyes, a creation perishes that over the course of several years you have become so united that sometimes it seemed that this inanimate “product” had a soul. Even now it seems to me that in each lost 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!..”
A subsequent investigation showed that from the 3rd to the 10th seconds of flight, the KORD engine operating parameters monitoring system mistakenly turned off the 12th and 24th engines of block “A”, but the launch vehicle continued its flight with two engines turned off. At the 66th second, the oxidizer pipeline of one of the engines broke due to strong vibration.
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 the N-1 fell into the steppe.
Based on the results of 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 mock-up “LK” (“11F94”) took place on July 3, 1969. This was the first night launch of the N-1.
At 23.18, the rocket took off 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, and a fire broke out.
The ascent slowed sharply, the rocket began to tilt and, 18 seconds into the flight, fell onto the launch pad. 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 moved off the rails.
The emergency rescue system worked reliably, and the descent module of the automatic ship "11F92" landed two kilometers from the launch position.
Cosmonaut Anatoly Voronov recalls that at that time cosmonauts were present during preparations for the launch. They climbed to the very top of the 105-meter rocket, inspected and studied the lunar rocket complex. Late in the evening they watched the launch from the cosmonauts’ hotel: “Suddenly there was a flash, we managed to run down, and at that time all the windows were broken by the shock wave. After the fall, the rocket exploded right on the launch pad..."
The cause of the explosion was the entry of a foreign object into the oxygen pump of engine No. 8 0.25 seconds before lifting. This caused an explosion of the pump, and then the engine itself. After installing the filters, this should not have happened again. It took almost two years for the Kuznetsov design bureau to refine and test the engines. Two N-1 accidents due to the low reliability of the first stage were quite enough to talk about the need for changes in the process of preparing the rocket for launch. The designers of TsKBEM had to admit that the strategy for testing reliability was chosen incorrectly.
A large rocket and 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 built on the basis of reusability 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 introducing additional safety devices.
The third launch of “N-1” (“6L”) was carried out from the surviving launch complex on June 27, 1971. As a payload, a lunar rocket system with the “LOK” and “LK” Models was installed. At 2.15 the launch vehicle lifted off from the launch pad and began its ascent. This time, the flight program included a maneuver to move the carrier away from the launch complex.
After its execution, due to the occurrence of unaccounted 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 rotation angle was 14°, after 48 seconds it was about 200° and continued to increase.
Due to large overloads during rotation, at the 49th second of the flight, block “B” began to collapse and the head block, along with the third stage, came off 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 crater 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, unexpected by theorists and by no calculations, was created around the longitudinal axis of the rocket. 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. In this case, the initial data were not gas dynamics calculations, but telemetric measurement data actually obtained in flight.”
As a result, it was shown that “the actual disturbing moment is several times higher than the maximum possible control moment that the control nozzles developed along the roll at their maximum deviation.”
Based on the results of the work of the commission that investigated the cause of the accident, it was decided to install four steering engines with a thrust of 6 tons on the first and second stages instead of six steering nozzles.
The last test of the N-1 (7L) launch vehicle with the standard LOK and LK, performed 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 final thrust mode. Six central liquid-propellant rocket engines were turned off after they had worked for the estimated time. The rate of ascent decreased sharply. This caused an unexpected hydraulic shock, as a result of which the liquid-propellant rocket engine No. 4 went into resonance, which destroyed the fuel pipelines and started a fire. The rocket exploded at 107 seconds.
Despite the fact that not a single N-1 rocket managed to complete the launch program, the designers continued to work on it. The next, fifth, launch was planned 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 missiles “8L” and “9L” ready for launch were destroyed.
From the N-1, only 150 NK-type engines, manufactured for various stages of the rocket, were preserved. Nikolai Kuznetsov, despite the government order, preserved them and stored them for many years. As time has shown, he did this not in vain. In the 90s they were purchased by the Americans and used on Atlas-2AR rockets...
The N-1 super-heavy launch vehicle 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 defense capability of the state, promote scientific and economic programs, as well as manned interplanetary flights. However, like its famous namesakes - the Tsar Bell and the Tsar Cannon - this design product was never used for its intended purpose.
The USSR began to think about creating a heavy superrocket back in the late 1950s. Ideas and assumptions for its development were accumulated in the royal OKB-1. Among the options were the use of 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 launch into orbit a load weighing up to 75 tons (the weight 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 low-Earth orbit with the subsequent prospect of assembling a TMK - a heavy interplanetary vehicle for flights to Mars and Venus. However, later a belated decision was made to include the USSR in the “lunar race” with the delivery of man to the surface of the Moon. Thus, the program to create 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 design of the launch vehicle, the creators had to evaluate at least 60 different options, from polyblock to monoblock, for 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 of the project.
During preliminary research, the creators were forced to abandon the polyblock design with parallel division into stages, although this design had already been tested on the R-7 and made it possible to transport finished launch vehicle elements (propulsion units, tanks) from the factory to the cosmodrome by rail . The rocket was assembled and tested on site. This scheme was rejected due to the non-optimal combination of mass costs and additional hydraulic, mechanical, pneumatic and electrical connections between the rocket blocks. As a result, a monoblock design came to the fore, which involved the use of liquid-propellant rocket engines with pre-pumps, which made it possible to reduce the wall thickness (and therefore the weight) of the tanks, as well as reduce the boost gas pressure.
The design of the N-1 rocket was unusual in many ways, but its main distinguishing features were the original design with spherical drop tanks, as well as a load-bearing outer skin, which was supported by a power set (a semi-monocoque aircraft design was used) and an annular placement of liquid propellant engines on each stage. Thanks to this technical solution, in relation to the first stage of the rocket during launch and ascent, air from the surrounding atmosphere was ejected into the internal space under the tank by the exhaust jets of the rocket engine. The result was something like a very large air-breathing engine, which included the entire lower part 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 connected to each other by special transition trusses, through which gases could flow absolutely freely in the event of a hot start of the engines of the next stages. The rocket was controlled along the roll channel using control nozzles, into which gas was supplied, diverted there after the turbopump units (TPA), and through the pitch and heading channels, control was carried out using the mismatch of thrust of the opposite liquid-propellant rocket engines.
Due to the impossibility of transporting the stages of a super-heavy rocket by rail, the creators proposed making the outer shell of the N-1 detachable, and making its fuel tanks from sheet blanks (“petals”) directly at the cosmodrome itself. This idea initially did not fit into the heads of the members of the expert commission. Therefore, having adopted the preliminary design of the N-1 rocket in July 1962, the commission members recommended further work on the delivery of assembled rocket stages, for example, using an airship.
During the defense of the preliminary design of the rocket, the commission was presented with 2 versions of the rocket: using AT or liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. At the same time, the option with liquid oxygen was considered as the main one, since the rocket would have lower performance when using AT-UDMH fuel. In cost terms, creating a liquid oxygen engine seemed more economical. At the same time, according to OKB-1 representatives, in the event of an emergency on board the rocket, the oxygen option seemed safer than the option using an AT-based oxidizer. The rocket's creators remembered the R-16 disaster, which occurred in October 1960 and operated 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 turning off defective liquid-propellant rocket engines during flight. This principle has found its application in the engine operation monitoring system - KORD, which was designed to detect and turn off faulty engines.
Korolev insisted on installing liquid-propellant rocket engines. Lacking the infrastructure and technological capabilities of 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 begin to develop engines for the N1, after which their development was entrusted to the Kuznetsov design bureau. It is worth noting that the specialists of this design bureau managed to achieve the highest resource and energy perfection for oxygen-kerosene engines. At all stages of the launch vehicle, the fuel was located in original ball tanks, which were suspended on the supporting shell. At the same time, the engines of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau turned out to be insufficiently powerful, which led to the fact that they had to be installed in large quantities, which ultimately led to a number of negative effects.
The set of design documentation for the N-1 was ready by March 1964, work on flight design tests (FDT) was planned to begin in 1965, but due to the lack of funding and resources for the project, this did not happen. The lack of interest in this project was reflected by the USSR Ministry of Defense, since the rocket’s payload and range of tasks were not specifically designated. Then Sergei Korolev tried to interest the political leadership of the state in the rocket, proposing to use the rocket in a lunar mission. This proposal was accepted. On August 3, 1964, a corresponding government decree was issued, the date for the start of missile testing was shifted to 1967-1968.
To carry out the mission of delivering 2 cosmonauts into lunar orbit and landing 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 to the preliminary design. Such solutions were found - installing additional 6 liquid-propellant rocket engines in the central part of the bottom of block “A”, changing the launch azimuth, reducing the altitude of the reference orbit, increasing the filling of fuel tanks by supercooling the fuel and oxidizer. Thanks to this, the carrying capacity of the N-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 design underwent changes, and it was decided to abandon ejection. The air flow was closed by introducing a special tail section. A distinctive feature of the rocket was the mass return on the payload, which was unique to Soviet rockets. The entire supporting structure worked for this, in which the frame and tanks did not form a single whole. At the same time, the rather small layout area due to the use of large spherical tanks led to a reduction in the payload, and on the other hand, the extremely high performance of the engines, the extremely 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 design 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 N-1's problems were associated with turning torque, strong vibration, hydrodynamic shock (during engine startup), electrical interference and other unaccounted for effects that were caused by the simultaneous operation of such a large number of engines (30 on the first stage) and the large size of the carrier itself. .
These difficulties could not be identified before the start of the flights, since, in order to save money, expensive ground stands were not built 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 ultimately led to a series of launch vehicle accidents.
Some attribute the project's failure to the fact that the state did not have a clear position from the very beginning, similar to Kennedy's strategic bet on the lunar mission. The hesitation of the Khrushchev and then Brezhnev leadership regarding effective strategies and tasks of astronautics is documented. Thus, 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 became a bargaining chip in the game of personal and political ambitions.
Another industry veteran, Vyacheslav Galyaev, believes that the determining factor in the failures, in addition to the lack of proper attention from the state, was the banal inability to work with such complex objects, while achieving approval of quality and reliability criteria, as well as the unpreparedness of Soviet science at that time to implementation of such a large-scale program. One way or another, in June 1974, work on the N1-LZ complex was stopped. The reserves available for this program were destroyed, and the costs (in the amount of 4-6 billion rubles in 1970 prices) were simply written off.
Information sources:
Launches of the H1 carrier
Although the engines proved to be quite reliable in individual bench tests, most of the problems that arose with the carrier were caused by vibration, hydrodynamic shock (when the engines were turned off), turning torque and other unaccounted effects caused by the simultaneous operation of such a large number of engines and the large size of the carrier, which was impossible identified before flights due to the fact that, in order to save money, expensive ground stands were not created for dynamic and fire tests of the entire carrier or the first stage in the assembly.
All launches of the N1 carrier were carried out from site No. 110 (with two launch pads) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The first launch of the N1 carrier (product 3L) with the unmanned spacecraft "Zond-M (7K-L1S, 11F92)" as a payload on February 21, 1969 ended in an accident. As a result of a fire in the tail section (engine No. 2) and a malfunction of the engine control system, this system issued a false command to turn off all engines at 68.7 seconds, which was followed by the explosion of the carrier at an altitude of 12.2 km.
The second launch of the N1 carrier (product 5L) with the unmanned spacecraft "Zond-M (7K-L1S, 11F92)" and a mock-up of the lunar landing ship (T2K-LK, 11F94) of the L3 complex was carried out on July 3, 1969 and also ended in failure due to abnormal operation of engine No. 8 of block A and turning off all engines on the 23rd flight, after which the carrier fell to the launch site. As a result of the largest explosion in the history of rocket science, one launch pad was completely destroyed, and the second was seriously damaged. According to the conclusion of the emergency commission chaired by V.P. Mishin, the cause of the accident was the destruction of the engine oxidizer pump. It took two years to analyze the test results, additional calculations, research and experimental work, and restore the launch pads.
The third launch of the N1 carrier (item 6L) with a mock-up of an unmanned lunar orbital ship (7K-LOK, 11F93) and a mock-up of the lunar landing ship (T2K-LK, 11F94) of the L3 complex was carried out on June 27, 1971. All 30 engines of block A reached the mode of preliminary and main stages of thrust in accordance with the standard cyclogram and functioned normally, however, as a result of an off-design turning moment during the maneuver to move away from the launch pad, already from the launch the rocket picked up a roll and continued an uncontrolled flight, which did not ensure insertion into orbit . Since, in order to guarantee the safety of the launch complex, the emergency shutdown command for the engines was blocked until 50 s, they were turned off by the control system and the detonation of the carrier, which had lost its warhead and began to collapse, was carried out at 51 s and an altitude of 1 km. To ensure roll control of the rocket, side steering engines were created in less than a year, running on oxidizing generator gas and fuel taken from the main engines.
Links
Additional links
- Soviet manned lunar mission programs and H1 launches
- Soviet manned lunar mission programs and the fate of N1
- History of the Soviet manned lunar missions and N1 programs
- “Tsar Rocket. Interrupted flight." Documentary. Roscosmos TV studio
Soviet and Russian rocket and space technology
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See what "N1 (launch rocket)" is in other dictionaries:
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It was originally intended to launch a heavy (75 t) orbital station into low-Earth orbit with the prospect of ensuring the assembly of a heavy interplanetary spacecraft for flights to Venus and Mars. With the belated decision to include the USSR in the so-called “lunar race”, to organize a manned flight to the surface of the Moon and return him back, the N1 program was accelerated and became the carrier for the L3 expeditionary spacecraft in the N1-L3 complex of the Soviet lunar-landing manned program .
All four test launches of the N-1 were unsuccessful during the first stage operation. In 1974, the Soviet lunar landing manned program was actually closed before achieving the target result, and a little later - in 1976 - work on the N-1 was also officially closed.
The entire manned lunar program, including the N-1 carrier, was strictly classified and became public knowledge only in 1989.
The technical name N-1 was derived from “Science-1”, according to other sources [ ] from the word “carrier”. In the West, the launch vehicle was known under the symbols SL-15 And G-1e.
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At S.P. Korolev’s design bureau, development of the rocket was carried out long before the start of official design. Already in 1961-1962, individual units and their parts were tested, and the basic design and layout diagram of the rocket was determined. Design materials for the N-1 rocket (29 volumes and 8 appendices in total) were reviewed at the beginning of July 1962 by an expert commission chaired by the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences M.V. Keldysh. The decree of September 24, 1962 established that flight tests of the N-1 LV should begin in 1965.
Main characteristics of the launch vehicle
The N-1 carrier was made according to a sequential arrangement and operation of the stages and included 5 stages, all of which used oxygen-kerosene engines. S.P. Korolev insisted on installing such engines. Lacking the technological and infrastructural capabilities of the risky and costly creation of advanced high-energy oxygen-hydrogen engines and advocating more powerful engines based on toxic high-boiling components, the leading rocket engine design bureau Glushko refused to make engines for the N1, and their creation was entrusted to the Kuznetsov aircraft engine design bureau, which achieved the highest energy and resource perfection for oxygen-kerosene engines. At all stages, fuel was stored in ball tanks suspended on the supporting shell. The engines of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau were not powerful enough; they had to be installed in large quantities, which led to a number of negative effects.
The stages were called blocks “A”, “B”, “C” (used to launch the L3 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit), “G”, “D” (intended to accelerate the spacecraft from the Earth and decelerate near the Moon). Thus, the H1 as a launch vehicle for low Earth orbit was actually a 3-stage one, and the 43.2-meter, 95-ton lunar launch vehicle under a common head fairing with a diameter of 5.9 meters with an emergency recovery system consisted of 2 upper carrier blocks N1 and the L3 ship, which included as modules the 9.85-ton lunar orbital ship LOK (11F93) and the 5.56-ton lunar ship LK (11F94).
On the first stage (block “A”) with a launch mass of 1880 (including dry - 130) tons, with a diameter from 10.3 to 16.9 meters and a length of 30.1 meters, 30 were installed along two concentric circles (before the lunar program there were only 24 on the outer circumference; then another 6 were added to them on the inner) NK-33 engines on the N1F variant (previously on the N1 - NK-15) with a unit thrust of 171 (previously - 154) tons and a total of 5130 (4615) tons. At the start, before separation, block “A” had to work for 115-125 seconds.
At the second stage (block “B”) with a launch weight of 561 (including dry - 55) tons, with a diameter from 7.3 to 10.3 meters and a length of 20.5 meters, 8 NK-43 engines (formerly NK-43) were installed 15) with a unit thrust of 179 tons and a total thrust of 1432 tons. Block “B” was supposed to work for 120 seconds.
At the third stage (block “B”) with a launch weight of 189 (including dry - 14) tons, with a diameter from 5.5 to 7.6 meters and a length of 11.1 meters, 4 NK-31 engines were installed (previously - NK- 21) with a unit thrust of 41 tons and a total thrust of 164 tons. Block “B” was supposed to work for 370 seconds.
At the fourth stage (block “G”) with a launch weight of 62 (including dry - 6) tons, with a diameter of 4.1 meters, 1 NK-19 engine (formerly NK-9V) with a thrust of 45.5 tons was installed. Block “G” was supposed to work for 443 seconds with the possibility of multiple activations.
At the fifth stage (block “D”) with a launch weight of 18 (including dry - 3.5) tons, with a diameter of 4.1 meters, 1 RD-58 engine with a thrust of 8.5 tons was installed. Block “D” was supposed to work for 600 seconds with the possibility of multiple activations. Based on this stage, the DM upper stage was subsequently created, which found wide use even after the closure of the Soviet lunar program.
The assembly and production of large-sized rocket stages was carried out directly at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in a specially built branch of the Progress plant and a huge assembly and testing building (MIC) at the 112th site, since due to the oversized dimensions of the stages it was not possible to transport them to the cosmodrome assembled from the manufacturing plant located in the city of Kuibyshev. The head unit was prepared at site No. 2. Assembly of the launch vehicle and the head unit at MIK pl. 112 was carried out horizontally, as well as being transported to the launch pad by two diesel locomotives on an installer moving along two parallel railway tracks.
It was assumed that, based on the N1 design, a family of launch vehicles would be operated, including an uprated version of the N1F and a version upgraded to a payload of 155-175 tons on oxygen-hydrogen engines N1M, smaller in size N11/11A53 (three middle stages of the N1) with a launch weight 700 tons for a payload of 25 tons and N111/11A54 (third and fourth stages of N1) with a launch weight of 200 tons for a payload of 5 tons, and in the future larger carriers H2, N3, N4 with a launch weight of 7000, 12,000, 18, respectively 000 tons (in which even more powerful first stages were sequentially substituted under the two lower stages of H1).
At first, the internal Soviet alternative to the Korolev Design Bureau’s N-1 lunar launch vehicle was the unrealized projects of similar launch vehicles UR-700 by Chelomey Design Bureau and R-56 by Yangel Design Bureau.
Despite some less progressive technical solutions (more stages, more engines, greater total thrust and smaller size of their nozzles on the first stage, refusal to use higher-energy oxygen-hydrogen fuel on the upper stages, lower payload weight), the Soviet N1 carrier was comparable to the American Saturn V carrier.
N1 was also initially planned as a carrier of a multi-purpose heavy interplanetary vehicle (TMK) assembled in orbit, and later as a carrier of also unrealized projects of the heavy Mars rover “Mars-4NM”, interplanetary station for delivering soil from Mars “Mars-5NM”, heavy orbital stations.
Launches
Four test launches of the N-1 were carried out. All of them ended in failure at the stage of operation of the first stage. Although the engines proved to be quite reliable in individual bench tests, most of the problems encountered with the launch vehicle were caused by vibration, hydrodynamic shock (when the engines are turned off), turning torque, electrical interference and other unaccounted for effects caused by the simultaneous operation of so many engines and the large size of the rocket. These problems were identified at the flight test stage, since due to a lack of funds, ground stands were not created for dynamic and fire tests of the entire carrier or the assembled first stage. This controversial approach, previously applied with varying success to much smaller and incomparably simpler ballistic missiles, led to a series of accidents.
All launches of the N-1 carrier were carried out from site No. 110 (with two launch pads) of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
First launch
Product No. 3L. The launch took place at 12 hours 18 minutes 07 seconds on February 21, 1969, with the unmanned spacecraft 7K-L1A/L1S (11F92) “Zond-M” (LOK prototype) as a payload, and ended abnormally. A few seconds after launch, as a result of a short-term power surge, the KORD (Rocket Engine Control) control system turned off engine number 12. After that, KORD turned off engine number 24 in order to symmetrize the rocket thrust. After 6 seconds, longitudinal vibrations of the rocket body led to a rupture of the oxidizer supply line, and after 25 seconds, to a rupture of the fuel line. When the fuel and oxidizer came into contact, a fire occurred. The fire damaged the wiring and caused an electric arc. The KORD sensors interpreted the arc as a problem with the turbopump pressure, and the KORD commanded the entire first stage to shut down at 68 seconds of launch. This command was also transmitted to the second and third stages, which led to the prohibition of receiving manual control signals from the ground, followed by the explosion of the carrier at an altitude of 12.2 km. The rocket fell along the flight path 52 kilometers from the launch position.
Second launch
Product No. 5L with the unmanned spacecraft 7K-L1A/7K-L1S (11F92) “Zond-M” (LOK prototype) and a model of the lunar landing ship LK (11F94) of the L3 complex. The launch took place on July 3, 1969 and also ended abnormally due to the abnormal operation of the peripheral engine No. 8 of block A. The rocket managed to take off vertically 200 meters - and the engines began to shut down. In 12 seconds, all engines were turned off except one - No. 18. This only working engine began to rotate the rocket around the transverse axis. At the 15th second, the powder engines of the emergency rescue system fired, the fairing flaps opened, and the descent module, separated from the carrier, successfully flew away, after which the carrier fell flat at the launch site at the 23rd second of the flight. As a result of the largest explosion in the history of rocket science, the launch pad was practically destroyed, and the second launch pad located nearby was severely damaged. According to the conclusion of the emergency commission chaired by V.P. Mishin, the cause of the accident was the destruction of the engine oxidizer pump. It took two years to analyze the test results, additional calculations, research and experimental work, and prepare the second launcher.
Third launch
Product No. 6L with a model of the unmanned lunar orbital ship LOK (11F93) and a model of the lunar landing ship LK (11F94) of the L3 complex. The launch took place on June 27, 1971. All 30 engines of block A reached the mode of preliminary and main stages of thrust in accordance with the standard cyclogram and functioned normally, however, as a result of an off-design roll moment, the rocket began to turn around the longitudinal axis, the steering nozzles stopped coping with the turn, the angles exceeded the permissible ones, and the rocket started disintegrate in flight. The connection between block B and the head block was the first to collapse; it fell not far from the launch site. Since the emergency engine shutdown command was blocked for up to 50 seconds to guarantee the safety of the launch complex, the flight continued. The first and second stages flew further uncontrollably, and after the lock was removed for 50.1 seconds of flight, the engines were turned off by the emergency team from the end contacts of the gyro devices. Having crashed into the ground with an explosion, the launch vehicle formed a crater with a diameter of 45 and a depth of 15 meters 16.2 km from the launch. The rocket did not reach site No. 31 by about five kilometers.
Fourth launch
Product No. 7L with an unmanned lunar orbital ship LOK (11F93) and a mock-up of the lunar landing ship LK (11F94) of the L3 complex. The launch took place on November 23, 1972. Before testing, the rocket underwent significant changes aimed at eliminating identified deficiencies and increasing the mass of the payload being launched. The flight control was carried out by an on-board computer according to commands from the gyroplatform (chief designer N.A. Pilyugin). Steering motors were introduced into the propulsion systems. A freon fire-fighting system was installed, creating a protective gas environment around the engines during flight. The measuring systems were completed with newly created small-sized radiotelemetry equipment. In total, more than 13 thousand sensors were installed on this rocket.
The rocket flew without notice for 106.93 seconds to an altitude of 40 km. 7 seconds before the estimated time of separation of the first and second stages during a planned reduction in thrust by turning off the six central engines, the almost instantaneous destruction of the oxidizer pump of engine No. 4 occurred with an explosion. The explosion damaged neighboring engines and the stage itself. This was followed by a fire and destruction of the first stage. Theoretically, the rocket’s energy resources were sufficient to provide the necessary launch parameters due to the operation of the upper stages, subject to early separation of the first stage. However, the control system did not provide for such a possibility.
Completion of work
After extensive work was again carried out to complete the launch of the carrier, the next launch of the N1F carrier (product No. 8L) with the standard unmanned lunar orbital ship 7K-LOK (11F93) and the lunar landing ship T2K-LK (11F94) of the L3 complex was scheduled for August 1974, when in automatic mode, the entire flight program to the Moon and back had to be completed. Then, a year later, the carrier (product No. 9L) was supposed to launch with the unmanned spacecraft L3, the landing ship-module LK of which would remain on the lunar surface as a reserve for the imminent next launch of the carrier (product No. 10L) with the first Soviet manned expedition to the Moon. After this, up to 5 more launches of the carrier with manned spacecraft were planned.
However, the “lunar race” was stopped by the USSR, and despite the developed technical proposals for the L4 lunar orbital station and the new N1F-L3M complex to support first long-term expeditions to the Moon by 1979, and then construction on its surface in the 1980s Soviet lunar base
Alexander Peslyak, RIA Novosti columnist.
The heavy carrier N1 was called the Tsar Rocket - for its size (height -110 meters, launch weight - about 2500 tons), the goals set during the work on it - strengthening defense capability, promoting national economic and scientific programs, manned interplanetary flights. But, like the Kremlin namesakes - the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell - this product never worked.
The premiere on February 21, 1969 ended at an altitude of 14 km: a fire triggered the engine shutdown system. The mass collapsed into the steppe. Three more times, thousands of tons of metal, fuel, thin tubes and powerful fastenings tried to break away from the Earth. Chief Designer Boris Dorofeev and hundreds of his colleagues watched with pain as the giants overcame gravity for tens of seconds - and crashed.
The superrocket was conceived back in the late 1950s at the royal OKB-1. Among the options are the use of the design reserve from the famous R-7, which launched the first satellites, and the creation of a nuclear propulsion system for another missile system. Finally, after the build-up in 1962, the expert commission (and then the authorities) chose a layout with a vertical design capable of placing up to 75 tons of payload into low-Earth orbit (to the Moon - 23 tons, to Mars - 15 tons). Then it was possible to develop and implement a lot of unique technologies - new welding methods, an on-board computer, an emergency rescue system for astronauts, lattice wings...
Korolev drew the attention of the marshals and Khrushchev to the possibility of launching an entire squadron of reconnaissance satellites and fighters with one rocket, hitting any point on the earth’s surface directly from space - and he himself was seriously preparing the Mars project back in 1962 (but was forced to reorient the N1 to the lunar program for a year already later).
By the end of the 1960s, the gap between the USSR and the United States in space was already obvious. Simply listing the factors that led to this is not analysis. But the totality was explosive. The death of S.P. Korolev in 1966, the difficult position of the new Chief Designer Vasily Mishin, the inconsistency of the authorities and the military in the development of the N1 program and goals. But the President of the Academy of Sciences, Mstislav Keldysh, proposed again three times - like Korolev at the very beginning - to focus the program on a flight to Mars, and not to the Moon. Overload of industry and budget, parallel development of programs (Soyuz, Almaz station). Rivalry and personal relationships of the Chief Designers (Korolev’s break with propulsion engineer Valentin Glushko is known due to the approach to the N1 program), the rise of Vladimir Chelomey (and the alternative program to fly around the Moon thanks to the Proton rocket), including thanks to the “family” (Khrushchev’s son worked as Chelomey's deputy). Inconsistencies and chronic delays in meeting deadlines in the rigid chain of cooperation deserve a separate discussion: five ministries were seriously punished for falling behind schedule at the beginning of 1967.
Was the abrupt cessation of work on N1 a mistake or not? Opinions vary. Some believe that this decision deprived the country of the opportunity to launch heavy (interplanetary) ships, billions of dollars in costs (estimated from 4 to 6 billion rubles) went to nothing - they turned into roofs for garages and playgrounds in the city of Leninsk. And the creation of the new heavy carrier “Energia” virtually from scratch required another 13 years of work and 14.5 billion rubles. The main thing is that the teams of dozens of research institutes, design bureaus, and factories “have lost the emotional charge of enthusiasm and sense of devotion to the ideas of space exploration, which are one of the determining factors in achieving, at first glance, completely unattainable fantastic goals,” as noted by the authors of the book about the half-century history of RSC Energia "
Others believe that it’s not so much the cool decision of academician Valentin Glushko. Some space veterans believe that the state initially did not have a clear position similar to Kennedy's strategic bet on the lunar landing. The hesitation of the Khrushchev leadership and the vagueness of Brezhnev’s regarding the tasks and effective strategies of astronautics are documented. One of the creators of the Tsar Rocket, Sergei Kryukov, noted: “The N1 complex, which took so much money, effort and years, died not so much because of technical difficulties, but because it became a bargaining chip in the game of political and personal ambitions.”
Among the project participants, there is an opinion that the leaders of the industry and leading enterprises themselves (even including S.P. Korolev himself) took an inactive position, who could not consistently defend the goal-setting and stage-by-stage development of near and far space. Industry veteran Vyacheslav Galyaev believes that the determining reasons for failure, in addition to lack of attention from the state, was also the inability to work with complex objects, seeking approval of reliability and quality criteria; finally, the unpreparedness of science to implement such a program as H1.
Engine engineer Viktor Khaspekov sees one of the reasons for the technological drama of the N1 in too long a debate around the size of the engine - and as a result, with reduced thrust (150 tons - while Glushko was ready to give 600 tons or more), the overall reliability of the entire complex turned out to be low. “We kind of turned a blind eye to the lack of development and dampness of the engines, because the race with America was in full swing. During random tests, 120 seconds of work were taken into account with a scientifically proven margin of 160 seconds, and a smaller number of switchings were also taken into account.” The bearings were turned into square ones, washers and other objects were found in the pumps. And the control was selective, as in aviation: they took one engine “for testing” - and based on it they judged the entire batch of products.
However, Samarans think differently: “The high reliability of the engines was confirmed by large positive statistics obtained during bench testing - 221 tests of 76 engines in a wide range (significantly exceeding the requirements of the technical specifications) of changes in external and internal factors.
The reliability of multiple launches was confirmed on 24 copies of engines with a repetition rate of up to 10 launches on one engine” (“Aerospace Review”, 2006, No. 3). The fatal NK-33s were successfully brought to reusable use - but it was too late. And even after 30 years the Americans and Japanese were hunting for them.
I also heard a more harsh analysis: blaming the lack of development of engines was beneficial to those who themselves did not comply with reliability criteria and established standards.
What are the lessons from the creation of two heavy carriers - N1 and Energia, which have become unnecessary without a secure target load? Voluntarism, capriciousness, calculation at chance, the dominance of the bureaucracy, the intra-industry “feudal” system, the lack of clear long-term programs and specific national priorities, the struggle of ambitions, technical and technological backwardness - this is a list of some of the reasons that prevented the Soviet cosmonautics from fighting on equal terms with the Americans for the Moon . The demand for the medium is the touchstone for testing.
Nowadays, little is said about domestic space rocket production; this, in particular, is reflected in the Federal Space Program for 2006-2015: only in the middle of the capacious text is a paragraph that our carriers are the most reliable in the world. But most of them run on toxic fuel components. Another drawback is that the cost of putting a satellite into orbit has already risen to comparable with foreign competitors.
What is in the “difficult” plans of Roscosmos and design ideas? Only in plans for 2026-2040. - creation of a super-heavy class carrier and completion of construction at the Far Eastern cosmodrome of infrastructure for flights to the Moon and its exploration. The readiness of the marsonauts and their spacecraft will inevitably be linked to the effectiveness of current programs, the development of related ones, international cooperation and, inevitably, to the elimination of the consequences of the financial crisis.
The Americans are developing projects for heavy carriers. NASA plans to have the Ares-5 rocket (height -116m, launch weight - 3,700 tons, payload - more than 180 tons in low Earth orbit, more than 70 tons in lunar transfer orbit). The current pan-European 700-ton Ariane 5 carries 6 tons and 9.5 tons of payload, respectively.
